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Praise for Eden Studios’ first collection
of original zombie fiction

1 he Book of All Flesh

“This is one anthology that you shouldn’t let get buried in your to-read
books.”

— Science Fiction Chronicle

“Editor James Lowder has done an admirable job of assembling a col-
lection that explores zombies in all their varieties, from traditional to new
age, with stories that do more than gross out the reader.”

— Tangent

“Full of excellent stories from 25 different authors. All have their own lit-
tle spin on what a zombie story should be and all of them entertain . . .
definitely pick up this book.” Rating: A

— Games Unplugged

Origins Award, Best Short Fiction of 2001, for Matt Forbeck’s story
“Prometheus Unwound.”

Eleven honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror ,
15th edition, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling.

fcacfc to

More zombie terror from
Eden Studios

ROLEPLAYING

All Flesh Must Be Eaten™

ZOMBIE HORROR ROLEPLAYING GAME

Zombie Master Screen
Enter the Zombie

Pulp Zombies

(October 2002)

Fistful o’ Zombies

(December 2002)

FICTION

The Book of All Flesh
The Book of More Flesh

The Book of Final Flesh

(April 2003)

mi m m m inti

Edited by James Lowder

STUDIOS INC

The Book of More Flesh is published by Eden Studios, Inc.

This collection © 2002 by Eden Studios, Inc. and James
Lowder; all rights reserved.

Cover art Christopher Shy. © 2002 by by Eden Studios; all
rights reserved.

Cover design and interior art © 2002 by George Vasilakos; all
rights reserved.

Similarities between characters in this book and persons living
or dead are entirely coincidental.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a trademark owned by Eden
Studios, Inc.

Reproduction of material from within this book for any purposes,
by photographic, digital, or other methods of electronic storage
and retrieval, is prohibited.

Please address questions and comments concerning this book,
as well as requests for notices of new publications, by mail to:
Eden Studios, 6 Dogwood Lane, Loudonville, NY 12211.

Visit us at at www.edenstudios.net and www.allflesh.com.

FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION
10 987654321

Eden Studios publication EDN 8701, October 2002.
ISBN 1-891153-86-2
Printed in the United States.

Acknowledgments

All works are original to this anthology, and are printed by
permission of the author.

Introduction by James Lowder. © 2002 by James Lowder.
“Goobers” by Scott Edelman. © 2002 by Scott Edelman.

“The Husks” by Paul Finch. © 2002 by Paul Finch.

“The Hounds of Love” by Scott Nicholson. © 2002 by Scott
Nicholson.

“Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle” by Charles Coleman Finlay.
© 2002 by Charles Coleman Finlay.

“Trouble” by Mark McLaughlin. © 2002 by Mark McLaughlin.

“Naked Shall I Return” by Tom Piccirilli. © 2002 by Tom
Piccirilli.

“Falling Into Naught” by Douglas W. Clark. © 2002 by Douglas
W. Clark.

“Sitting With the Dead” by Shane Stewart. © 2002 by Shane
Stewart.

“The Black Rose” by Don D’Ammassa. © 2002 by Don
D’Ammassa.

“Charlie’s Hole” by Jesse Bullington. © 2002 by Jesse
Bullington.

“The Dead Kid” by Darrell Schweitzer. © 2002 by Darrell
Schweitzer.

“Brainburgers and Bile Shakes: A Love Story” by Jim C. Hines.
© 2002 by Jim C. Hines.

“ZOMB, Inc.” by J. Allen Thomas. © 2002 by J. Allen Thomas.
“Life Sentence” by David Dvorkin. © 2002 by David Dvorkin.
“Martin’s Inferno” by Tyler Sigman. © 2002 by Tyler Sigman.
“Memory Remains” by Steve Eller. © 2002 by Steve Eller.

“The Little Death of Mr. Phillips” by J. Robert King. © 2002 by
J. Robert King.

“The Hyphenated Spirit” by Scot Noel. © 2002 by Scot Noel.

“Inheriting Red” by Alexander Marsh Freed. © 2002 by
Alexander Marsh Freed.

“Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies” by Michael J. Jasper.

© 2002 by Michael J. Jasper.

“Night Shift” by Rebecca Brock. © 2002 by Rebecca Brock.
“Bright Angels” by K. Z. Perry. © 2002 by K. Z. Perry.

“The Ethical Treatment of Meat” by Claude Lalumiere. © 2002
by Claude Lalumiere.

Table of Contents

Introduction / 9
Goobers

Scott Edelman / 13

The Husks
Paul Finch / 20

The Hounds of Love
Scott Nicholson / 34

Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle
Charles Coleman Finlay / 54

Trouble

Mark McLaughlin / 64

Naked Shall I Return
Tom Piccirilli / 75

Falling Into Naught
Douglas W. Clark / 89

Sitting With the Dead
Shane Stewart / 104

The Black Rose
Don D'Ammassa / 113

Charlie’s Hole
Jesse Bullington / 127

The Dead Kid
Darrell Schweitzer / 144

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes: A Love Story
Jim C. Hines / 158

ZOMB, Inc.

J. Allen Thomas / 169

Life Sentence
David Dvorkin / 178

Martin’s Inferno
Tyler Sigman / 196

Memory Remains
Steve Eller / 214

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips
J. Robert King / 221

The Hyphenated Spirit
Scot Noel / 238

Inheriting Red

Alexander Marsh Freed / 255

Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies
Michael J. Jasper / 270

Night Shift
Rebecca Brock / 280

Bright Angels
K. Z. Perry / 296

The Ethical Treatment of Meat
Claude Lalumiere / 304

Contributors’ Notes / 3 1 3

Introduction

They won’t stay dead!

Well, I suppose I should have expected that. By their very
nature, zombies specialize in relentlessness and resurrec-
tions. It should hardly be a revelation, then, that even in their
fictional form, they can’t be contained between the covers of a
single anthology. And that’s how this book came about: The
living dead refused to recognize the final page of the final story
in The Book of All Flesh as the end, as the boundary past
which they could not shamble.

If a coffin lid and six feet of graveyard earth can’t keep
them down, what hope did a thin sheet of paper really stand?

When Eden Studios decided to greenlight The Book of All
Flesh last year, we anticipated problems. There was an audi-
ence for the living dead, as Eden had discovered through the
success of the All Flesh Must Be Eaten roleplaying game.
However, several great fiction collections had already covered
zombies: The Mammoth Book of Zombies, The Ultimate Zombie,
and the two Book of the Dead anthologies, to name just the
most noteworthy. So when we sent out that first call for sub-
missions, we steeled ourselves for the possibility that the sub-
ject had been exhausted. Worst case, we’d get a few surpris-
ing takes on the living dead, but nowhere near enough to fill
three hundred pages. More likely, we would receive a flood of
enthusiastic, but not particularly inventive tales inspired by
Night of the Living Dead and Evil Dead II. We hoped for the
best, but were braced for either of those unhappy scenarios —
ready to work with the writers to make their stories more
challenging and original, or to send out a second call (and
maybe a third) in order to gather enough worthwhile fiction
for a collection. Such is the lot of the small press anthology.

What we did not expect was two hundred and fifty sub-
missions, including more than enough inventive, entertaining
tales to fill a book. The reviews of The Book of All Flesh have
often expressed surprise at the variety of stories found therein.
I’m pleased that this trait came through to most readers.
Surprise was certainly something I felt when first making my
way through the two copier paper boxes overstuffed with story
submissions. A smart, funny jab at political correctness in the
form of a morning show chat about the “Living Impaired”? A
beautifully written zombie version of Our Town ? Superheroes?

10

Introduction

Clearly, the subject had not been exhausted.

And so here I am again, one year after penning the intro-
duction for The Book of All Flesh, ready to unleash another
shambling mob of original zombie tales upon the reading pub-
lic. Like the submissions I read for the first volume, the stories
sent to me for consideration for the present collection (this
time approaching three hundred in number) proved remark-
ably varied in tone and style and approach to the subject of
the living dead. But there are some interesting themes that
echo through this collection.

The cinematic zombie looms large here, as it does over the
entirety of the subject’s literature. Lacking a single strong lit-
erary template — such as Dracula provides the modern vampire
story — films have established the baseline of expectations
about zombie fiction. This is so much the case that when the
dead plague his city, the movie theater owner in the collec-
tion’s lead-off story alters his film line-up to “all zombies, all
the time.” The movies so clearly dominate and define the sub-
ject that only they can offer a comprehensive guide to the apoc-
alypse in progress. The writers represented in The Book of More
Flesh also acknowledge the film zombie’s dominance, but usu-
ally reference the cinematic tradition with the intent of sub-
verting its expectations or highlighting its more ludicrous
aspects. And there are plenty of those.

Children also play a central role in many of the works here.
That’s not uncommon; as a symbol of innocence, kids often get
cast as The Thing That Must Be Saved in horror stories. They
also make fine facades for evil, especially useful for bad seeds
and demon spawn who want to go about their nasty work
without garnering too much suspicion. But the children of
Tom Piccirilli’s “Naked Shall I Return” or Scott Nicholson’s
“The Hounds of Love” or Darrell Schweitzer’s “The Dead Kid”
are a lot more complicated than that. They connect the idea of
the living dead with children in interesting ways, playing off
the notion that both can be viewed as things we leave behind
us when we die. They are both heirs to our sins, and their
reality is shaped by things over which they have little control.

In my introduction to The Book of All Flesh, I wrote a bit
about the purpose of the horror story — that an effective tale
of terror should cause unease and remind us that terrible
things can happen. Given the crises of the past year, that role
seems just a bit less vital. How much do we really need to be
reminded of the potential for horror in our lives when endless
loops of the World Trade Center collapsing can be viewed on
cable news networks twenty-four hours a day?

Introduction

11

In an atmosphere of continuous terror alerts and open-
ended wars against unnamed enemies, perhaps horror’s role
changes a bit. The terror tale need not remind us of the bad
things, the unimaginable things, that can occur, but it can
make us consider how we might maintain — or abandon — our
humanity in the face of those horrific events.

Zombies prove to be quite malleable when utilized in this
type of story. In their most familiar form — mindless brain-
munchers motivated only by desire and appetite — they readily
demonstrate those aspects of our make-up that we would be
best to shun. But the living dead, in a stoiy like K. Z. Perry’s
“Bright Angels,” can also appear far more sympathetic to read-
ers than the live people surrounding them. And the motiva-
tion of the undead protagonist in Steve Eller’s “Memory
Remains” stands out as far more noble than those that drive
most of the anthology’s living characters.

But if, like the projectionist stuck watching the non-stop
zombie film marathon in Scott Edelman’s “Goobers,” you
aren’t quite convinced that the lessons to be imparted by the
living dead are quite so profound, you can simply sit back and
enjoy this as a collection of well- told tales. The Book of More
Flesh is that, too.

T T T

Thanks are due to all the writers who submitted works to
be considered for both this volume and The Book of All Flesh.
Reading the hundreds of stories they penned was never a
chore, and their support for the books, even when their tales
did not make a final line-up, has been refreshing and very
much appreciated. Special thanks are due, as well, to George
Vasilakos and Alex Jurkat of Eden Studios, for offering a
writer-friendly contract and giving all these great stories a
place to be published. The relentless zombie horde would
have overwhelmed me long ago were it not for their equally
relentless support.

— James Lowder
August 2002

Goobers

SCOTT EDELMAN

Willard woke to echoing screams. The sound didn’t bother
him at all.

He had gotten used to those screams over the past few
months, so used to them, in fact, that by now, it had become
something of a ritual for him. Wake to the sounds of fear, start
up a new reel in the theater’s projection booth, fall asleep a
moment or two later, jolt awake whenever the audience
freaked out at the scary parts . . . and then get ready to start
another new reel. Lately, he’d been spending more time on the
job sleeping than waking. Still, he hadn’t missed a cue for
changing a reel yet.

Chocolate. He smelled chocolate. When he touched his
cheek, his fingers came away brown. He glanced down to the
remnants of a box of Raisinets scattered across his desk, and
realized that he’d fallen asleep face down, melting them into
the desktop.

It wasn’t the first time he’d stirred to find himself like that.
Movies always went better with a snack, and that he some-
times ended up face down in them didn’t change that fact.

When Dan, his boss, had first switched over to his all-
zombie all-the-time line-up, Willard had occasionally peeked
out to see what had made the audiences scream, but it was
never anything worth his effort: just Caro syrup, food color-
ing, and pig entrails. He quickly became bored sick with the
repetitive nature of these undead flicks, with corpses jumping
out of closets, with brain munchers, with doubters who died
and believers who, well, who seemed to die anyway.

Night of the Living Dead. The Incredible Strange Creatures
Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Voodoo
Dawn. Willard thought them all ridiculous, thought Dan’s
whole theme idea ridiculous, and longed for the variety of the
old days — but that’s why he was only the projectionist and not
the manager, for it looked as if his boss had guessed right,
had made the right business decision.

Terrifying reports were coming out of the big cities every
day, and so Dan had figured that, given the chance, customers
might turn to the movies to soak up all they could about the
coming plague, might choose to sift through the cinematic

14

Scott Edelman

past in search of survival tips. Dan had been right — ticket
sales were through the roof.

Willard was stunned. What fiction could teach anyone at
a time like this, he just couldn’t see.

But he didn’t complain, at least not out loud. The concept
kept him employed, when so many other types of businesses
were failing under the threat of an approaching apocalypse.
People seemed to get something out of the unreal dead, and
what’s more, bought out the concession stand while they did
so. Movies and candy went hand in hand, which meant that
Willard’s hand was guaranteed to go hand in hand with a
weekly paycheck. Which was just fine with him, so when he
muttered, he muttered quietly.

He found it hard to believe what was going on in New
York, Los Angeles, Chicago, all those big cities that had once
seemed impossibly distant and now felt terribly close. Even
with the news footage that confronted him each morning, it
still seemed like — like a movie. And yet what the television
showed him each day, though it mimicked what he spooled
each night, that was real.

Graves splitting open. The dead returning with a new life.
People being eaten alive, their shredded remnants rising to
begin the cycle all over again. He used to envy those who lived
in the metropolises. But no more.

The country was falling apart — or more precisely, being
eaten alive — and no one knew exactly why.

The shouts from the theater were still going on, longer
than seemed necessary, and not just in response to some
tense, fleeting moment on the screen. They were continuous
now, almost a living, breathing thing. Willard, who’d long
since given up on the audience, slid his wheeled stool forward
so he could peer through the small square window and into
the crowd below.

In the flickering light, as sluggish zombies stalked
humans upon the screen, Willard could see the same scene
enacted in the bowels of the theater — only the walking dead
below were not so sluggish as the ones above.

Two zombies toyed with an old woman, each holding an
opposite arm as they played a ghoulish tug of war. Her arms
grew shorter as they ate their way from knuckles, through
wrists, then elbows. The higher they chewed, the more wildly
she thrashed, until she could take no more, and fell to the
worn carpeting, where Willard could not see her. One of the
undead cradled a young boy in his arms, gnawing on his skull,
seeking the soft treasure within. A large man, who inexplicably

Goobers

15

refused to drop his tub of popcorn, moved wildly back and
forth in the middle of a row, trapped as zombies approached
him from either end. As they came within reach, he leaped for-
ward toward the screen, hurdling over the line of seats, falling,
grunting, getting up to leap again and again, until he got to the
very front row, where he became lost in a waiting mob of hun-
gry hands. Those not under immediate attack ran for the exits,
but were washed back into the theater by waves of further
zombies thrusting in from the doors.

Willard could not bear to watch, but he watched, horrified,
anyway, and this time he lost track of time. The projector sput-
tered out without him remembering to cue the next reel, and
suddenly, the fantasy world of the film was gone, and the huge
white rectangle of the empty screen glowed bright within the
theater. As the free end of the reel snapped repeatedly beside
him, he could see the mayhem even more clearly. Willard could
take no more, and so he killed the projector, which sent the
theater into darkness. He slid to the floor, where he listened to
the screams and crunching sounds in the darkness.

Eventually, the screaming stopped, but the crunching
went on.

He became lost in his mind, only made aware of the outer
world again by the sound of feet shuffling across the cracked
linoleum outside the door of the locked projection room. After
some prints had been stolen, Dan had reinforced the door, and
this wasn’t the first time Willard had found himself thankful
for that. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last. The lurker outside
brought on an upswelling of panic. Willard needed to get out,
but the sound at the door told him that there was nowhere to
go. If the zombies could reach to the heart of the city to feed
on the theater’s customers, then the rest of downtown had to
be in the same state. Though his gooseflesh tried to tell him
otherwise, he was probably safest where he was.

And yet . . . even though he’d been snacking since the
beginning of his shift, the knot at the pit of his stomach told
him that he could not stay still for long. He scooped up the
last of the Raisinets, but a handful of pellets, looking not so
very different from rabbit droppings, would do little to feed his
hunger. He was a man used to keeping his stomach full, but
it wasn’t only that. He knew that he had to get out of that
room and get some more food or else he’d starve, and how stu-
pid would that be? The projection room was barely larger than
a coffin, and he normally couldn’t wait to rush out of the
cramped little booth at the end of each shift. He certainly
couldn’t bear the thought of spending eternity there.

16

Scott Edelman

He needed time to think, to plan where he could possibly
go that would be safe. But first he needed some food. He
wasn’t the kind of man who could plot a course of action when
hungry.

Willard listened to the darkness below, but could not tell
whether the zombies were resting there silently after their
gorging, or had gone on to other conquests, searching the
theater for more victims.

Victims like him.

He needed to create a distraction, and he smiled, because
luck had given him one of the greatest distractions ever
invented. He started up the projector once more, hoping that
the bellowing sounds of life from the theater’s speakers would
draw away the zombie at his door — as well as any others who
wandered the halls in a dull imitation of hope — long enough
for him to sneak down to the concession stand. He pressed an
ear to the door, and could hear the shambling grow louder at
first, as if a creature that knew nothing of scurrying was
attempting to rush off, but then the sound dimmed. When the
hallway seemed clear, Willard nervously opened the door.

There was little evidence of the zombie’s passing. In fact,
a smear of blood that stretched across the wall mixed so well
with the theater’s general dinginess that Willard, at first, did
not notice it. Only when his hand slid across the stain and
he realized that it was wet to the touch did he feel a true
sense of fear, and almost bolted back to the room. But he
knew that way held no promise of escape. He took the stairs
down slowly, cursing each creak, glad he’d turned the
movie’s volume up as loud as possible.

He paused before the swinging double doors to the theater,
searching for the courage that would let him peer within. He
could not bring himself to raise his eyes to the small circular
windows in either door, and so he pressed his eye to the thin
crack between them. He could make out movement there, but
could discern nothing of the details.

After what he had seen from above, he knew that it was
probably better that way.

He retreated to what had once been a well- stocked candy
counter, which was now an explosion of sugar and shattered
glass. Colorful boxes spilled out onto the floor, their contents
sprayed wide, apparently open not from being sampled, but
from being stepped on. The floor seemed like something
Jackson Pollack would have created, red blood overlaid with
red ketchup, and then blended with mustard and dollops of
relish. The hot dogs were tumbled down beside the vast stain,

Goobers

17

having been knocked from the wire tree on which they’d spun.
Many of them had bites snatched from them, but as far as
Willard could tell, none had more than one; they had each
been tasted and rejected.

Zombies didn’t like their meat cooked.

Listening carefully for any sudden sounds from the theater,
he stuffed his pockets with Goobers and Dots and Nestle’s
chocolate-covered pretzel bites. This wasn’t the first time he
had taken candy without paying for it. The difference was,
though, that before it had only been Dan he had worried about
catching him. But back then, he couldn’t resist, couldn’t bear
to watch a movie without his mouth in motion. Most people
were like that.

He gave the remnants of the hot dogs a last, long, hungry
look, knowing that they were probably what would best sus-
tain him through whatever was to come. But he couldn’t bear
the thought of eating them, not now, not without knowing for
sure which had or had not been chomped on by a zombie, or
even merely touched.

He suddenly remembered the freezer, and so he squeezed
behind the counter, hoping that its stainless steel doors had
proved too tough for the zombies to open with their thick fin-
gers. Perhaps he could find some frozen hot dogs there that
he’d be able to stomach.

Instead, he found Dan. Or what was left of Dan.

The man’s eyelids were open, but there were no longer any
eyes beneath them. His arms were bent and broken in posi-
tions arms and legs were not meant to go, and the way he’d
been left made what remained of him look like the remnants
of a fried chicken dinner — the clothing shredded off his skin,
the skin clumsily shredded off his flesh, and in many places,
the flesh shredded entirely off his bones.

Willard was able to suppress a scream, but he couldn’t
control his leaden feet, which caused him to stumble back
and thud against a wall. He could hear a scrabbling move-
ment swell within the theater in response, and his heart,
which had seemed to stop, started up again. He ran back
toward the only refuge he knew, taking the stairs three at a
time until he was locked in the projection room again.
Exhausted, he checked the lock four times, and then pulled
his pockets inside out and emptied his candy onto his desk
before the packages could melt into a sugary mess.

After he caught his breath, he nervously approached the
window and peered out into the theater again. His eyes
adjusted to the darkness, a darkness made less black by

18

Scott Edelman

Zombie Island Massacre flickering across the screen and by
the strips of tiny lights that sparkled along the carpeting on
either side of each aisle. Some zombies stumbled up and
down those aisles, tripping over the scattered bones and bod-
ies that remained from the feast. But others were actually
perched in the worn padded seats. He could not see their
faces — he was not even sure, due to the manner of their
deaths, whether they even had faces, or whether he could
have read their emotions there even if he’d seen them — but
their body language, the way their shoulders tilted forward
and their heads tilted back, he would swear that they seemed
almost . . . expectant. They actually seemed to be looking at
the screen. It seemed ridiculous to even think it, but they
appeared to be watching the movie.

Willard, too, looked out at the screen, which showed a
group of bloated zombies shambling along. He wondered if,
just as humans had once come to the theater looking for
information on what was going to happen to them if the
undead truly came to life, for help with how they were going
to behave in their new world, the zombies could be doing the
same. Maybe they also felt a need — at least those for whom
humanity was not so far behind — to figure out the strange
society that was to come, and how to perform their parts in
the ghastly play.

There was only one way Willard could learn whether this
was true, whether the zombies were just sitting there, only
looking at the screen by coincidence, or whether it was some-
thing more. Perhaps they were struggling to remember the act
of going to a movie. . . .

He had to know. He was perhaps the only one in the
world in such an odd situation as to be capable of knowing.
And so, with a dedication he had never known when running
the projector was just a job and the audience comprised only
living customers, he spooled reel after reel, and watched. And
waited.

He screened White Zombie, Zombies on Broadway, even
the deliriously awful Plan 9 From Outer Space, running
through all the films that Dan, in his wisdom, had stocked.
Dan would never know what had happened, but Willard
would not let his foresight go to waste.

A sugar high coursed through him as he watched the
theater and its inhabitants. The changes there were slow and,
at first, subtle ones. With each passing moment, more zom-
bies came, shuffling down the aisles in apparently random
motion. Some wandered off again, but others stayed, and sat,

Goobers

19

until Willard finally noticed that the theater had become
packed without him realizing it, with every seat taken. Those
newcomers who arrived after that merely stood in the aisles
rocking in place as they stared at the screen. They were hyp-
notized, seduced into submission by the same special effects
that Willard had previously mocked. They seemed to make no
distinction between the gore of Dawn of the Dead and the
farce of Dead Alive. The were equally rapt by all. As he gob-
bled his way through his precious stockpile of candy, he tried
to discern what they were looking for up there on the screen.
He prayed that one zombie would turn to another so he could
see their faces and decode what they were waiting for, but
unlike humans in a theater, they seemed to have nothing to
say to each other, and even though they were together, they
were alone. All he could ever see was the back of their heads.

It was maddening. The movies were teaching them some-
thing, he knew it. He was teaching them, as he’d been teach-
ing humans for years, but this time, he felt a need to see it
happening. They were listening to his movies. He knew they
would listen to him.

He unlocked the door to the projection room, and found
the hallway deserted, as he knew it would be. The films had
netted them all. Once downstairs, he moved slowly down a
narrow side corridor that ran along the length of the theater
and led him up on the stage behind the screen. He folded back
an edge of the screen and peered through to the audience of
the undead. Their faces were tilted up, and Willard felt as if
they were looking at him rather than just the screen. He knew
he could reach them, just knew that he could. He stepped
around the screen and walked to the center of the stage. As
the film flickered against his body, he began to speak.

“Listen to me,” he said, but was allowed to get no further,
for soon all that came from his lips were his own echoing
screams, only this time, there was no one left for those
screams to wake. And as dozens of zombies munched down
on him, the film brightening the air around him and the
actors above going through their ghoulish paces, one final
thought went through Willard’s mind:

He’d been right all along — whether zombie or human, it
was still a universal truth that all movies went better with a
snack.

The Husks

PAUL FINCH

“You know,” Annie said, “if we were in the States, this guy
would have been gassed or electrocuted years ago.”

The British cop nodded as he drove. “Which would be
unfortunate, you must admit. Considering he’s now coughing
to these two extra murders.”

Annie wasn’t impressed. She glanced out of the window at
the rolling flatlands of the Lincolnshire fen- country: low-lying
fields with drab, skeletal hedgerows between them, hung with
tatters of late autumn leaves. “He’s playing a game. Surely
you realize that?” She dug into her purse for her cigarettes,
then offered one to the cop. He shook his head. “Filling out his
life sentence with stuff like this: belated confessions once
every ten or so years; bringing himself back into the public
gaze; getting himself trips out into the country; putting the
grieving parents through their misery all over again.”

The cop, Brooker, simply shrugged. His eyes never left the
winding, muddy lane ahead of them. “The grieving parents
need closure. Otherwise I wouldn’t even give him the time of
day.”

“And improving the crime figures doesn’t have anything to
do with it?”

He half-smiled at that; surprisingly, it wasn’t unpleasant
to see a smile on that gritty, haggard face. “Well ... it does, I
suppose. But, hey, I’m too long in the tooth to worry about
statistics any more.”

A moment of silence followed as he drove and Annie
smoked. The narrow lane rolled endlessly on. Occasionally, its
slick, unmade surface slipped like ice beneath the Volvo’s
spinning wheels. Behind them, the cavalcade of police vehi-
cles was having similar problems, careering here and there,
struggling to avoid the water-filled ditches to either side of the
road.

“So tell me, Detective Brooker,” Annie finally said, “you’re
what — National Crime Squad, did you say?”

He nodded.

“What’s that, some kind of British version of the FBI?”

“Some kind,” he replied, though in truth he didn’t look
nearly neat or clipped enough to belong to anything resembling

The Husks

21

the Bureau; his sports jacket had seen better days, his shirt
was crumpled, his tie hung in a loose knot. He might’ve been
handsome once, but not any more . . . too grizzled, too
unshaven, and way, way too tired. He was clearly into his for-
ties; his mop of dark hair hadn’t started graying yet, but it
probably wouldn’t be long.

“One of the jobs we’ve copped for at the moment is clear-
ing up cases like this,” he finally added. “Interviewing con-
victed murderers who are known or suspected to have killed
more than once, and seeing if we can tie them in with any
unsolveds. Since DNA profiling’s come out, it’s a lot easier
than it used to be. Course, we still need their cooperation. We
can’t just drag them out of jail and beat the information from
them.”

“Mmm, pity,” said Annie, drawing on her cigarette. “You’re
pretty soft on hoods in this country, considering you’ve got
such a high crime rate.”

He grunted. “Tell me about it.”

“You favor the tougher approach, huh?”

Again, Brooker smiled. Again, it was far from unpleasant.
“I have done, I’m sorry to say. In the past. But these days I
prefer . . . well, guile.”

Annie gazed ahead, through a plume of tobacco smoke.
“Which is what we’re doing today?”

He nodded, his smile slowly fading again.

T T T

Albert Stickman had never considered himself a serial
killer.

For one thing, the phrase hadn’t even existed when he’d
been at liberty; at least, not over here in Britain. For another,
there was something about the term that over the years had
come to imply predatory premeditation. And that had never
been the case with Albert. He was a rapist, without any doubt,
and he was a rapist of little girls, which was pretty unsavory
by any standards. But his attacks had been opportunist
rather than pre-planned. When the mood had come upon
him — which it did irregularly, but in overwhelming, irre-
sistible fashion — he’d simply launched himself into it, and
had hoped to be able to clear up the mess afterward. That was
where the murder part had come in. Serial killers, as far as
Albert understood, were supposed to enjoy the actual killing.
To them, it was as big a part of the deed as the rape or bug-
gery; it was an end in itself rather than a means to an end; it
had a rapture all of its own. Not for him. He’d only killed his

22

Paul Finch

victims to make sure they wouldn’t talk. And when he’d done
it, he’d done it as quickly and as painlessly as possible — heavy
and repeated blows to the face and head with a large lump of
rock. Of course, no one understood this. And if they did, it cut
little ice with them. They still referred to him as “a deranged
beast,” as “an animal,” as “a wicked, wicked man.” As “a serial
killer.”

Well, let them.

He sat in the darkness of the prison transport as it
bumped and ground its way along, and was strongly tempted
to smile. He was elderly now — weak, shriveled, a faded shadow
of the burly, self-sufficient journeyman who’d once trodden the
roads of the UK, strong and able enough to turn his hand to
any kind of manual work, cunning enough to take his pleasure
with youngsters almost at will, when the need arose. But he
still had the upper hand.

They needed his compliance, and that was the long and
short of it. And how and when he gave it to them was entirely
up to him. It had taken eight or nine lengthy interviews with
Detective Sergeant Brooker and his cohorts to finally get
Albert to confess to doing the Melbury kids, but the truth was
that he’d decided to own up to it long before then. Dragging it
all out had been part of the fun, part of the making-them-pay
routine; and by “them,” he didn’t just mean the coppers, but
the whole judicial system, and the general public at large, that
great, unwashed mass of plebs who didn’t understand the
first thing about him but still called for him to be hanged. Of
course, that was thanks mainly to those hypocritical rabble-
rousing bastards in the press. And the so-called “families and
friends” of the victims. All these years on, and that pathetic
bunch of losers were still moping about it, still crying over
the mantelpiece photographs. Self-centered, holier-than-thou
parasites. Who were they trying to kid? Talk about milking a
tragedy for all it was worth. Why couldn’t they just knuckle
down and get on with their lives? He’d had to, and his last
twenty- six years had been a living hell.

Well ... as he said, he still had the upper hand. He always
would. Even now, when he was supposedly cooperating, he’d
privately decided to make life hard for them. For instance,
he’d given them the rough location where the bodies were
buried, but had now come up with the line that he wasn’t sure
of the exact spot. And they believed him, the duffers! They
actually believed you could rape and sodomize two little kid-
dies, and batter their heads in, and then not remember where
the hole was that you put them in. What a hoot! They’d have

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23

to dig up the whole of Hinkley Wood before they found any-
thing, and all the while, he’d be watching from the sidelines
and chuckling over his tea. And it got better. Apparently,
they’d now brought some kind of psychic in to try and pin-
point the place, in case he couldn’t find it himself. Talk about
desperation measures.

Albert sat back, relaxed. The “serial killer” bit would be
the next card he’d play; it was perfect. Let one of them, just
one of them, tag him with that phrase — even in conversation,
even in a casual, off-the-cuff remark — and he’d clam up so
tight they wouldn’t get so much as a sour, garlic-tainted
breath out of him. He wouldn’t say a single further word
about this case, or any of the others he knew they were plan-
ning to put to him. Not a single word.

Not for several more years, at least. Then they could start
the process all over again.

4* T +

“So how did you first link him to these other two missing
kids?” Annie wondered.

Brooker shrugged as he drove. “Just a matter of compare
and contrast. Andrea Kirk — the girl we know Stickman mur-
dered — was buried by him in a small wood in 1976. She was
only found after Stickman got arrested. Some quick- thinking
beat-bobby connected him to the scruffy workman supposed to
have picked her up outside her infant school. He got arrested
and grilled; finally, he cracked and told them. Otherwise they
might never have found her. When I was going through the
case files recently, I started thinking — if they didn’t find her
body until they were told where she was, does that mean there
could be others who were never found? The Melbury twins
went missing six months before Andrea Kirk, from a school
only eight miles away. I didn’t have to be a genius to link the
two together.”

Annie stubbed her cigarette out and tossed it through the
half-open window. “And when you finally put this to him in
prison, he was ready to talk? Just like that?”

The cop gave it some thought. “Like you say, it probably
gave him something to do. Plus, he’s in the pedophile unit at
Dummoor. From what I hear, there’s an ongoing competition
in there — those who’ve done the most damage to kids get the
highest status.”

Annie considered this information for a moment, then
gazed out again at the drear landscape. Many of the fields
they passed were sorely neglected; they’d turned to swamps in

24

Paul Finch

the heavy November rain, or were rank and overgrown, and
now strewn with a litter of sodden yellow leaves. Pieces of old
farm machinery sat rusty and mud -caked in the midst of
them. Here and there, the forlorn outlines of scarecrows
sagged on their frames; ragged, unconvincing things. Even
the ever- skeptical crows couldn’t be bothered to sit on them.
In fact, birds, like most other forms of wildlife, were noticeably
absent. An ashen sky overarched everything, but nothing flew
through it; even the clouds were motionless — a great ominous
mass of opaque gray, weighing down like concrete from above.

Annie wasn’t sure how it happened, but the foreknowl-
edge of child-murder always seemed to have this dour impact
on a place. It didn’t matter where she’d been — from the
parched badlands of Arizona and New Mexico, to the densely
treed foothills of the Rockies — working for everyone from sher-
iffs departments to state troopers to the FBI, the atmosphere
always seemed the same. The silence, the stillness, the sense
of gloom and desolation, the bleak, awful emptiness of a land-
scape eternally scarred by the secret knowledge of what it
concealed. . . .

“I should tell you, I don’t exactly relish this kind of work,”
she finally said, wondering how many quests for missing per-
sons she’d actually been on, and realizing that she’d long ago
lost count. “But it’s a gift I seem to have. And, in a way, I’m
flattered you came to see me.”

The cop said nothing for a moment, then: “When I heard
you were on a lecture tour over here, how could I resist? I
mean, I’d already read your book.”

She glanced sidelong at him. He didn’t look the type to
attach credence to anything even remotely paranormal; not
just too cynical or citified, but perhaps too damaged, too
burned by the realities of his job. Of course, one man’s reality
was another man’s fevered nightmare, so you never really
knew. In general terms, though, she didn’t expect he’d been
able to stage-manage her presence without running into oppo-
sition of some sort.

“And none of your colleagues have given you any grief?”
she wondered. “Even back in the States, where I’ve got quite
a rep, it’s sometimes difficult to persuade officers of the law
that I can do what I say.”

Again, he seemed to think it through before replying. “I
suppose it’s a case of ‘what harm can it do?’ I don’t like dead
ends, Annie. And that’s what we were coming to. It was tough
enough getting Stickman to admit he murdered the Melbury
twins, but if he can’t find where he buried them, the whole

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25

thing will have been for nothing. Even British bosses can see
the logic in that. And like I say, it’s not as if we had to fly you
over the Atlantic.”

She smiled. “Even so, I bet they’re asking questions about
you on the top floor.”

He smiled too. “There’s never a time when they aren’t.”
Then he flipped her a wink. “They can’t live with me, they
can’t live without me.”

“A maverick, huh?” she replied. “I’m even more flattered.
It doesn’t stop me being dubious about your boy, though. I
come from a small down in Idaho. I like to think I’m a modern
woman, but where I grew up we’ve always believed in frontier
justice. If this son of a bitch Stickman is never going to get out
of prison anyway — what’s that you call it over here?”

“The judge gave him a full-life tariff for the Andrea Kirk
murder.”

“Well if this SOB has already got a full-life tariff, he isn’t
going to get any punishment at all for these other two kids.”

Brooker shrugged. “That’s the law in the UK, I’m afraid.”

“Then, Nick, the law in the UK sucks.”

The detective pondered this but didn’t reply. His expres-
sion was inscrutable. If he agreed with her, there was no sign
of it. But neither was there any sign he disagreed.

T T T

It was ten minutes later when the procession of vehicles
came to a slow halt next to a decayed, broken-down fence,
and beyond that the outer fringes of Hinkley Wood.

Annie and Brooker climbed from the Volvo, then made
their way round to the prison van at its rear. Like the police
vehicles behind it, it was muddied up to its wheel-arches and
spattered all over its armored, windowless bodywork. They
waited in silence while the two prison officers helped
Stickman out from the back. As Annie could clearly see, he
was in his sixties now, and visibly frail. Beneath his heavy
overcoat, the prison blues were loose and baggy on a wasted,
wizened frame. His longish hair hung in a lank, white mop
around a face so pinched and peevish it was almost a Scrooge
caricature. Apparently Stickman had heart trouble these
days. He also suffered from severe arthritis, which explained
why they hadn’t bothered with cuffs or leg chains. He wasn’t
going anywhere — especially not with fifty or so members of the
local Tactical Support Group now climbing out of their vehi-
cles; not to mention the dozen or so suits from the NCS, local
CID officers, and a handful of dog handlers, whose animals

26

Paul Finch

were already snarling and straining on the leash, just dying
to sink their teeth into him . . . again. Add to that the camp-
following press corps — who’d suspected something was afoot
and had tagged along on the caravan’s tail just for the hell of
it — and, all in all, it was quite a crowd.

“You okay?” Brooker asked the convict, who’d promptly
suffered a coughing fit when he’d come out into the fresh air,
and then been forced to shield his eyes from the unaccus-
tomed daylight.

Stickman didn’t bother to reply. He wiped his mouth and
straightened himself out. Then his eyes came to rest on Annie.
He sneered in contempt. “Who’s this — Gypsy Rosa-Lee?
Couldn’t half tell, either.”

Annie chuckled. She knew that with her various strings of
beads, flowing gray hair, and capacious checkerboard poncho,
she was something of a walking cliche. Not that spindly,
stooped, scrunch-faced Albert Stickman was any different.

“And I couldn’t tell who you were . . . not much,” she said,
with a humorless grin.

The convict had no answer for that. Instead, he turned to
Brooker. “Are we getting on with it, or what?”

The detective nodded and checked his watch. “It’s just
past twelve noon, which gives us about four hours of daylight.
How long do you think you’ll be?”

“How the bloody hell should I know?”

T T T

Hinkley Wood wasn’t actually much of a wood.

It stood like a small copse in the middle of muddy, cow-
trampled meadowland. It couldn’t have been more than two or
three hundred yards across in any direction. But what it
lacked in size, it made up for in content, for it was deeply tan-
gled. A variety of trees grew inside it: ash, alder, willow, holly,
hornbeam, and more, all, without exception, warped, stunted,
and twisted together almost as though by some fiendish grand
design. The thin fingers of their largely leafless branches were
virtually interlaced, and the ground between them — the little
bit of it visible from the outside — was thigh-deep in the wet,
brown bracken of last summer’s luxuriant, but now dead and
rotting, undergrowth.

No one particularly wanted to go into it, and for a moment
even Stickman held back, scanning the wood’s shadowy inner
places with weak, watery eyes.

“Everything alright?” Brooker finally asked him.

“Er . . . yeah,” he replied. “Like I said, not sure exactly

The Husks 27

whereabouts in there it was. I mean, we are talking nearly
thirty years ago.”

“Well, that’s what we’ve got Annie Frazer for. She — ”

“And I don’t need no fucking weirdo witch, either!”

“She’s hardly likely to do anything to you,” the cop said.

Brooker knew that Stickman was afraid of being brutal-
ized; that was one of the reasons the child-murderer had
given for not wanting any company when he finally ventured
in among the trees. He was convinced — or he said he was —
that once he was away from the prying eyes of the press,
who’d been kept well back on the road with the vehicles, he’d
get beaten up. That was undoubtedly due to the fact that he’d
been beaten when he’d first been arrested. Par for the course
back in the rough and ready 1970s. The detective found it
odd, though, that Stickman, who’d been clever and calculat-
ing throughout, thought they’d seriously try something like
that now, when they were relying so much on his good will.

“Look,” the convict advised him, as though he could tell
what the cop was thinking, and was sick and fed-up with not
being listened to, “and I’ve told you this all along: It’s my way
or the highway. We do this exactly the way I say, or it’s all the
way back to Durnmoor and not another fucking word out of
me.”

“No problem,” said Brooker, stepping back and indicating
the wood. “You want it, you’ve got it.”

A second passed, then Stickman set off over the rugged
pasture. The detective turned. Everybody else was watching
from behind the fence, but Annie had come forward and set
up her fold-away chair on a stony patch just beside the path.
She was now seated comfortably on it, and watching Brooker
with interest.

“He really likes calling the shots,” she observed.

Brooker nodded darkly. Having to cow to the child-killer’s
every wish was clearly taking its toll. His brow had knotted;
his lips were tight and cold. “I don’t think you have to be a
mind reader to work that out,” he finally said.

“No,” she said, after a moment. “No, I guess you don’t.
Anyway ...”

She reached down beside her chair to a paper sack, from
out of which she took a shiny red rainhat that had once
belonged to Sarah Melbury, and a little cotton mitten, formerly
the property of Sarah’s twin sister, Meagan. Moments passed
as she rolled and slipped the articles between her long, thin,
nicotine-stained fingers. She wasn’t looking at them, but her
face was already a picture of intense concentration.

28

Paul Finch

Brooker watched her for a second, then, sensing the sud-
den deafening silence, glanced around behind. All along the
road there was a breathless anticipation, a unique stillness;
every eye was fixed on him; facial expressions were variously
uncertain, bewildered, fascinated, even amused. He wondered
what they were thinking — his colleagues from the NCS, from
the local fuzz. Probably that he was taking a big leap into the
dark; that whatever the result, his credibility as an investiga-
tor was fucked; that his career was on the line big time.

Brooker wasn’t too concerned, about what they thought,
or about his career, for that matter.

If anything, the situation tickled him. It always made him
giggle, the way law enforcement was, these days, riddled with
people who considered it a route to the top. They all seemed
to do it, from the high-flying divisional headquarters types,
who’d got where they were by being politically correct, using
all the latest buzz words and generally kissing every buttock
they could; right down the scale to the eager-beaver recruits
who’d bought the new line that the police was a service not a
force, and a sure-fire way to build a worthy and lucrative
career — instead of a thankless form of self-slavery, filled with
unhappy men and women too busy chasing slags and skags
to think about their next promotion board, and too worried
about covering their backs to plan for their next exam. And
then there were the other things — the odd things, the crazy
things, the indescribably horrible, soul-destroying things, the
things he’d seen and done in his twenty-five years that would
defy any attempt to integrate them with a normal, healthy,
happy lifetime’s experience.

Yeah, this was some career. . . .

He turned back to the wood, where the lean, hobbling
shape that was Albert Stickman had just started weaving its
way in . . . that wood, where two innocent babies lay buried
in the deep, black sod, their torn, broken husks defiled and
pounded into muck and mold, lost for decades amid rank
roots and mottled clumps of weed and fungus.

Yeah . . . like Nick Brooker could really care whether he
fucked things up for himself.

T T T

One of the real reasons Albert had said no coppers should
go into the wood with him was because he didn’t want them
coming across some obvious piece of telltale evidence, like a
stick of bone or something.

That was how the Moors Murderers’ private little graveyard

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29

had been discovered: some great dozy flatfoot, the brightest
thing about him the buttons on his tunic, had noticed a sin-
gle fragment of leg bone sticking up out of the ground. It was
unlikely in this case, of course — this wasn’t open, windy
moorland — but you never knew. A lot of things changed in
twenty- six years, and he hadn’t buried the kids that deep.

As he pressed on between the gnarled, twisted trunks,
however, it rapidly became apparent to Albert that even
though he vividly remembered that day in 1976, there was no
possibility he’d find the exact spot without help of some sort.
So much had changed, it was almost like a different place. To
begin with, as he recalled, the wood had been much smaller
in those days; just a sparse clump of trees, with a small over-
grown hide in the middle of it. He still remembered a dim
patch of earth, masses of twigs interwoven above and around
it, almost as though some child had constructed it as a secret
den. Some child might have done just that, for all Albert
knew, but there was no trace of it now.

Wherever he moved, branches snaked across his path and
had to be snapped and bent, or forced out of his way. Thoms
plucked at him; dead leaves hung in his face. The mossy boles
of trees grew so tightly together that, thin as he was, he had to
squeeze his way between them, smearing his hands and
cheeks with a cold, greenish slime. There was a raw, pungent
smell of decay in the air. Everything he saw was moist and
dripping. His boots and socks were soon sodden as he waded
knee deep through the fetid tangles of dead and dying brush.
And it was getting dark, too, amazingly quickly. Albert glanced
around. He hadn’t expected there to be much light as it was —
not on a dull November afternoon — and though a little sunlight
penetrated the copse, a veil of dusky shadows had drawn
sharply in around him. On all sides, the browns and yellows of
the rank, autumnal woodland seemed to darken and deepen,
to lose their outline, to meld together in a foggy purple-gray.

Albert pushed on regardless. Okay ... he was unhappy
about being here, but fear was one emotion that he couldn’t
possibly afford to show. The fact that he wouldn’t be able to
locate the graves didn’t worry him overmuch; he could let the
pigs do that, let them takes months and months doing it. But
he had to at least make a show that he was looking. So he
continued, opting to pick his way through the wood along a
roughly circular path, hoping to come out again at the point
where he’d gone in. And the wetter and more ragged he got in
the process, the better. It would add authenticity to his claim
that he’d searched high and low.

30

Paul Finch

For several minutes more he delved through the endless
thickets, ducking below branches, sliding around the leaning,
mossy trunks. The ground continued to squish beneath his
feet. Noisome drops of water fell onto his head. This was a
hideous place, right enough. He knew what the newspapers
would say when they finally got in to have a look for them-
selves — that he couldn’t have chosen a worse locale to bring
children to, that the young victims’ agonizing deaths must
have been made all the worse by their abhorrent surround-
ings. And it wouldn’t make a jot of difference if he insisted
that Hinkley Wood had not been like this in those days, or
that he’d chosen it because it was out of the way, not because
it was scary or Godforsaken. They made a point of never
believing anything he said. In which case, perhaps he should
just revel in it — in the notoriety it gave him, in the impression
it reinforced that he truly was an evil monster.

Lambs slaughtered in wilderness Hell, he thought with a
dark chuckle, perceiving the headline in his mind’s eye. Babes
brought into heart of darkness.

Then Albert heard something.

At first he thought it might be the wind, or a few dead
leaves fluttering down from their withered stalks. Very quickly,
though, as the sound persisted, he realized it wasn’t that at all.
He listened intently ... to what at first was a faint but steady
twitching of undergrowth, a rustling and rattling of bracken,
punctuated by the occasional cracking and popping of twigs.

A sense of unease went through him. Someone else was
moving about in the wood . . . and by the sounds of it, they
weren’t too far away. In fact, as the noises grew in volume,
they clearly were getting closer. Albert glanced left and right,
scanning the gloomy avenues around him. For the moment at
least, nothing visible stirred. But what he heard was undeni-
able. What was more, now that it was nearer, it sounded
stealthy, furtive, as if whoever it was, was creeping.

The convict felt the hair on his neck stiffen. Had one of the
coppers come into the wood after him? No; that would’ve
entailed crashing about, puffing and grunting, probably much
swearing. Likewise, if it had been one of their dogs, he’d have
heard it thrusting its way forcefully through, panting aloud,
paws pattering. Again he turned, this time in a complete cir-
cle, but he couldn’t see more than several yards in any direc-
tion. There wasn’t even the vaguest glimpse of the distant
meadows. Someone was approaching him, however; of that
there was no doubt.

Albert tried to tell himself that it could be anyone. Perfectly

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31

natural explanations abounded; a farm worker, a gamekeeper,
some tramp perhaps. But in none of those cases was there an
obvious explanation as to why this person should be creeping.
For creeping they surely were. Either that, or they were light
on their feet and small of stature. . . .

That thought was intolerable, and Albert tried to laugh at
the foolishness of his own imagination, but it came out a dry
croak. And that was when he heard the second set of sounds.

He swung around sharply. Another person, it seemed, was
coming toward him. And though he couldn’t tell from where,
exactly, this second creeper was approaching, it was from a dif-
ferent direction than the first. All at once, the convict felt
trapped. “What the fuck?” he said in a low, tremulous murmur.

He wasn’t terrified as such. Not yet. But his heart was
already going ten to the dozen, and an icy sweat had broken
on his brow. He stared hard into the surrounding trees.
Again, he saw nothing, yet still he heard them. Whoever they
were, they were not large . . . for now that they were closer it
sounded as if they were being clumsy rather than stealthy,
approaching in a stumbling, puppetlike walk, hauling them-
selves awkwardly through the yielding brush, yet still not
making a great deal of clamor.

Children, then. It was children, without doubt. And two of
them. . . .

Albert felt an hysterical scream rising in his chest. And
when a skeletal clump of hawthorn, about five or six yards to
his left, began thrashing and swaying as something pushed
its way through, that scream tore itself out of him with a pain
so fierce it was like losing part of his anatomy. In a blind
panic, the convict lurched off in the opposite direction.
Fleetingly, the piercing arthritic pains in his knees and ankles
were as nothing to him. He blundered on, headlong. Twigs
snagged at him, branches struck him glancing blows. But he
felt nothing, he saw nothing . . . only something peripheral,
something glimpsed, something spotted in a moment of mad-
ness from the corner of his disbelieving eye: fish-belly white,
matted with leaves, caked all over with clods of earth. And the
stench! Oh, dear God, the stench of it!

But that was behind him now. It didn’t matter. It was all
behind him. He laughed as he ran, dementedly, scrambling
up and down over greasy roots, falling heavily but always get-
ting back to his feet again, kicking his way through briars and
blackberry, through tussocks of dying ferns, being scratched
and torn. But still none of that mattered, because the worst
part was behind him.

32

Paul Finch

At least, he thought that.

Until he saw something else just ahead, just as he’d
expected to break out into the fields. It stood there swaying,
blocking his path, a ghastly silhouette on the fading daylight.

“Jesus!” he shouted, “oh Jesus Chriii — ”

Wait, he thought desperately. It was small. It was only
small. If he kept going, he could knock it to the ground, as
he’d done before. As he’d done so often. He could smash it and
pulverize it . . . but again that smell, thick and souplike and
toxic beyond belief. It was like running into a wall, a wall of
fetor, of putrescence, of vomit and corruption. Albert stag-
gered backward and tried to go another way, but now his
chest was hurting him. The pain came, over and over, as
though some great invisible fist were clubbing him there.

“No,” he squawked. “Nooo ...”

Another strangled cry erupted from his tortured throat
before his legs turned suddenly to pieces of rubber and gave
out. He’d have pitched to the ground had it not been for the
surrounding vegetation. Absurdly, though, Albert fought
against it, grappling madly with the branches and twigs,
which twisted around him and tied themselves in knots, hold-
ing him upright almost against his will.

In his frenzy, his lank white hair flopped wetly down over
his eyes and obscured all his vision — and for that, perhaps, he
should have been thankful, for those two things were still
advancing, were almost upon him, in fact, limp and lolling in
their clouds of stench. He knew it, he could sense them. But
even they were suddenly of small concern, for now Albert felt
the pain in his chest blossom through his entire body, con-
stricting his throat, squeezing his lungs, shooting like fire to
the tips of his toes and fingers.

The last thing he saw was a blazing, all-consuming light
coming down over his screaming head . . . and it wasn’t a
celestial light.

T + T

“Heart attack,” the Tactical Support Group inspector told
Brooker, as his men brought Stickman’s body out of the wood
on a stretcher. A green blanket had been thrown over it. To
one side, a thin, rigidly clawed hand trailed on the ground.

Brooker said nothing. The TSG man, a tall military sort
with a clipped mustache and petulant manner, wasn’t too
impressed. “Not surprising, really,” he added. “At his age,
doing all that work. What the bloody hell did he dig them up
for when we were here?”

The Husks

33

Brooker shrugged.

The TSG man shook his head. By his attitude, he clearly
felt that the National Crime Squad — and Detective Sergeant
Brooker, in particular — were somehow to blame for this
inconvenient turn of events. “I’ve had three full teams on
today . . . for nothing,” And he stamped irritably away.

Brooker waited a moment, then turned and looked at
Annie. She was still in her chair, but now placing the missing
children’s clothing back into the paper sack. A moment
passed, then she sensed she was being watched and glanced
up.

“Justice served, I think,” he said, strolling toward her.

She continued putting the items of clothing away. “I
thought you didn’t believe in capital punishment?”

“Generally, I don’t, but let’s just say you’ve convinced me
some cases are exceptions.”

“Glad it turned out okay for you, then,” she replied. And
her eye caught something.

She looked past him toward the trees. Brooker turned and
followed her gaze. Two pairs of TSG men were each bringing
out a black PVC body bag. Pitifully, neither bag was more
than four feet long or looked even remotely full; any one of the
burly officers could easily have managed one without the help
of his colleague. Only deference to the victims prevented this.

It was very much what Brooker had been expecting — in
fact, it was what he’d been hoping for, but it didn’t bring
much solace. Even the most hardened police officer rarely got
used to sights like this.

Apparently, Annie Frazer felt the same way. She sighed
and rubbed her furrowed brow. Brooker glanced down at her,
and it suddenly struck him how pale and tired she looked.
Which wasn’t, he supposed, too surprising.

“This telepathy takes it out of you, hey?” he said.

“No,” she replied, “not really.” She paused for a moment,
as the two body bags were carried past. “But the telekinesis
sure does.”

Th e Hounds of Lo ve

SCOTT NICHOLSON

Dexter licked his lips. His stomach was shivery. October
was brown and yellow and crackly and tasted like candy corn.
He knelt by the hutch that Dad had built back before the
restraining order was filed.

He touched the welt under his eye. The wound felt like a
busted plum and stung where the flesh had split open. Mom
had accidentally left her thumb sticking out of her fist when
she hit him. She hadn’t meant to do it. Usually, she was care-
ful when she punched him.

But one good thing about Mom, she didn’t hold a grudge
for long. She’d turned on the television and opened a beer,
and after the next commercial break had forgotten all about
him. It was easy to sneak out the back door.

Dexter poked some fresh blades of grass through the sil-
ver squares of wire. The rabbit flashed its buck teeth and
wrinkled its nose before clamping down on the grass and hop-
ping to the back of the hutch. It crouched in the shadows and
chewed with a sideways gnashing of its jaws. The black eyes
stared straight ahead. They looked like doll’s eyes, dead and
cold and stupid.

Dexter’s stomach was still puke-shivery. He opened the
cage and snaked his hand inside. The rabbit hopped away
and kept chewing. Dexter stroked the soft fur between the
rabbit’s eyes.

Gotta tell ’em that you love ’em.

He snatched the leathery ears and pulled the rabbit for-
ward into the light. He held it that way for a moment, like a
magician dangling a trick above a hat, as it spasmed and
kicked its four white legs. This was October, after all, the
month when anything could happen. Even stupid old magic,
if you dressed like a dork in a wizard’s cape for Halloween.

Dexter looked over his shoulder at the house. Mom was
most likely passed out by now. After all, it was four o’clock in
the afternoon. But Dexter had learned from his dad that it
never hurt to be paranoid.

He tucked the rabbit under his windbreaker and crossed
the backyard into the woods. When he reached the safety of
the trees, he took the leash from his pocket. This was the

The Hounds of Love 35

tricky part. With his tongue hanging out from concentration,
he squeezed the rabbit between his knees.

He pressed harder until he heard something snap and the
rabbit’s back legs hung limp. He almost puked then, almost
wept, but his first tear rolled across the split skin beneath his
eye and he got angry again. “I’ll teach you better than to love
me,” he whispered, his breath ragged.

It was the rabbit’s fault. The dumb creature shouldn’t
have tried to love him. The rabbit was tiying to get him, to
play the trick on him, to make him care. Well, he wasn’t going
to belong to nothing or nobody.

Dexter used both hands to attach the leather collar. The
collar had belonged to his little redbone hound. Uncle Clem
had let Dexter have the pick of the litter. Dexter had chosen
the one with the belly taut from milk, the one that wagged its
thin rope of a tail whenever Dexter patted its head. Dexter had
named it Turd Factory. Well, stupid old Turd Factory didn’t
need the collar anymore.

Dexter fastened the collar and let the rabbit drop to the
ground. It rolled on its side and twitched its front legs.
Sometimes they died too fast, sometimes before he even
started. Dexter headed deeper into the woods, dragging the
rabbit behind him by the leash. It was a hundred feet to the
clearing where he liked to play. There, the sun broke through
the tree limbs and a shallow creek spilled over the rocks.
Dexter squinted at the scraps of the sky, his eye almost
swollen shut now. The clearing smelled like autumn mud and
rot, the magic odors of buried secrets.

Dexter tightened the leash around the rabbit’s neck until
its veins bulged. He put one hand under the soft white chest
and felt the trip-hammering heart that was trying to pump
blood through the tourniquet. The rabbit began kicking its front
legs again, throwing leaves and dark forest dirt into the air.

This was the part Dexter hated — the fear that came to the
animals sooner or later as he tortured them, that little frantic
spark in the eyes. The desperation and submission as they
gave all that they had. Stupid things, they made him sick,
they made him want to throw up. It was all their fault.

Dexter opened the pocketknife and went to work. This one
was a relief. The rabbit had started out scared and stayed
scared, paid for loving him without a whimper. Dexter was
blind from tears by the time he finished.

He buried the carcass between the roots of a big oak tree.
Right next to old Turd Factory. Dexter washed his hands in the
creek. It was almost dinnertime. He turned and walked back

36

Scott Nicholson

through the clearing, past the depressions of soil where he
had buried the other animals.

His own little pet cemetery. He had seen that movie. It had
given him the creeps, but not badly enough to make him give
up his hobby. Plus, by the time he was finished with them, no
chunk was big enough to stand up by itself, much less walk.

Three cats were underground here, two of them compli-
ments of dear old Grandma. She’d given him the rabbit as an
Easter present. He’d swiped a rooster from a falling- down
coop up the road, but he didn’t think he’d be pulling any more
of those jobs. The rooster had spurred him, plus the dumb
bird had squawked and clucked loud enough to wake the
dead. There was a box turtle buried somewhere around. But
that had mostly been a mercy killing. Mom kept pouring beer
into its water.

Same with the goldfish. He told her he’d flushed them
down the toilet. Goldfish were boring, though. They didn’t
scream or whimper. They didn’t make him want to throw up
while they bled. They were too dumb to love.

Dexter giggled at the thought of a goldfish coming back
from the dead and haunting him. He’d like to see that in a
movie someday. The Revenge of the Zombie Fish. He wiped his
eyes dry and headed down the trail to the house.

Mom was boiling some macaroni when he came in the back
door. She wiped at her nose as she opened a can of cheese
sauce. The sight of her moist fingers on the can opener killed
Dexter’s appetite. He sat down at the table and toyed with an
empty milk carton.

She must have passed out in her clothes again. They were
wrinkled and smelled like rancid lard. “Where you been,
honey?” she asked.

“Out playing.”

“Where?”

“Out,” he said. “You know.”

She slid a plate of steaming macaroni in front of him.
Dexter could see dried egg yolk clinging to the edge of the
plate. “How was school?”

“The usual.”

“Hmm. What you going to be for Halloween?”

“I don’t know. I’m getting too old for dress-up and make-
believe.”

“Whatever.” She opened the refrigerator. It was empty
except for a dozen cans of beer, a wilted stalk of celery, and
something in a Tupperware dish that had a carpet of green
stuff across the top.

The Hounds of Love 37

Dexter watched as she cracked a beer. She was red. Her
hands were red, her face was red, her eyes were red.

“You not hungry?” she asked.

“No. Maybe later.”

“Well, you need to eat. You’ll get me in trouble with Social
Services again.”

“To hell with them.”

“Dexter! If your Grandma heard that kind of language

The old bag would probably slap me upside the head, he
thought.

But the good thing about Grandma, she always felt guilty
afterward. She would go out and buy something nice to make
up for it. Like the pocketknife or the BB gun. Or a new pet.

He didn’t mind if Grandma made his ears ring. At least
with her, there was profit in it. With Mom or Dad, all he got
was a scar to show for it. Maybe Grandma loved him most. He
picked up his fork and scooted some noodles around.

“That’s a good boy,” Mom said. She bent and kissed him
on top of the head. Her breath smelled like a casket full of
molded grain. “Your eye’s looking better. Swelling ought to be
down by tomorrow. At least enough for you to go to school.”

Dexter smiled weakly and shoved some macaroni in his
mouth. He chewed until she left the room. The telephone
rang. Mom must have finally had it reconnected.

“Hello?” he heard her say.

Dexter looked at her. He could tell by her crinkled fore-
head that Dad was on the other end, trying to worm his way
back into the bed he’d paid for with the sweat of his god-
damned brow, under the roof he’d laid with his own two
motherfucking hands. And no snotty-eyed bitch had a right to
keep him out of his own goddamned house and away from his
only son. Now that it was getting toward winter —

“You know you’re not supposed to be calling me,” she said
into the phone. She bit her lip as Dad responded with what
was most likely a stream of cusswords.

That was the problem with Dad. No subtlety. If only he’d
play it smooth and easy, pretending to care about her, he’d be
back in no time. And after a few months of acting, family life
could go back to the way it was before. Back to normal.

But the bastard couldn’t control himself. Why couldn’t he
just shut up and pretend to love her? It was easy. Everybody
else was doing it.

Riley Baldwin down the road said that was the secret. The
word love.

“Gotta tell ’em that you love ’em,” he always said, with all

38 Scott Nicholson

the wisdom of an extra year and two more inches of height.
“Works like magic.”

Said love had gotten him a hand up under Tammy Lynn
Goolsby’s dress. Inside her panties, even. And Grandma said
she loved Dexter. Of course, that was different, that kind of
love gave you presents. Love got you what you wanted, if you
used it right, even if it hurt sometimes.

“Don’t you dare set foot near this place or I’ll call the
cops,” Mom screeched into the phone. Her face turned from
red to a bruised shade of purple.

She stuttered into the phone a couple of times and
slammed the handset down, then drained the last half of her
beer. As she went past him to get to the refrigerator, she didn’t
notice that Dexter hadn’t eaten his dinner. He slipped away to
his tiny, cluttered bedroom and closed the door. He stayed
there until Mom had time to pass out again. He fell asleep lis-
tening to her snores and the racket of the television.

Nobody said a word about his black eye at school the next
day. Riley was waiting for him when he got off the bus. Riley
had skipped. Dexter wished he could, too, but he didn’t want
Mom to get another visit from the Social Services people,
showing up in their squeaky shoes and perfume, and acting
like they knew how to run a family they didn’t belong to.

“Got my .22 hid in the woods,” Riley said, showing the
gaps in his teeth as he grinned. His eyes gleamed under the
shade of his Caterpillar ball cap.

“Cool, dude. Let me get my BB gun.”

Riley waited by the back door. Dexter dropped his books
in a pool of gray grease on the dining room table, then got his
gun out of his room. Mom wasn’t around. Maybe she’d gotten
one of her boyfriends to make a liquor run to the county line.
A note was stuck to the refrigerator, in Mom’s wobbly hand-
writing: Stay out of trouble. Love you.

Dexter joined Riley and they went into the woods. Riley
retrieved his gun from where he had buried it under some
leaves. He tapped his pocket and something rattled. “Got a
half box of bullets.”

“Killed anything with that yet?”

“Nope. But maybe I can get one of those stripedy-assed
chipmunks.”

“Them things are quick.”

“Hey, a little blood sacrifice is all it takes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Breaking it in right.” Riley patted the barrel of the gun.
“Making them pay for messing with me.”

The Hounds of Love

39

Riley led the way down the trail, through Dexter’s pet ceme-
tery and over the creek. Dexter followed in his buddy’s foot-
steps, watching the tips of his own brown boots. October hung
in scraps of yellow and brown on the trees. The shadows of the
trees grew longer and thicker as the sun slipped down the sky.

Riley stopped after a few minutes of silent stalking.
“What’s up with your dad?” he asked.

“Not much. Same old.”

“That must be a pain in the ass, seeing him every other
weekend or so.”

“Yeah. He ain’t figured out the game.”

“What game?”

“You know. Love. Like you said.”

“Oh, yeah. Gotta tell ’em that you love ’em.”

“If he played the game, we wouldn’t have Social Services
messing around all the time.”

“Them sons of bitches are all alike. The cops, the truant
officers, the principal. It don’t matter what the fuck you do.
They always get you anyway.”

“I reckon so.” Dexter’s stomach was starting to hurt. He
changed the subject. “What was it like, with Tammy Lynn?”
Riley’s face stretched into a jack-o’-lantern leer and he
thrust out his bony chest. “Hey, she’ll let me do anything. All
you got to do is love ’em. I know how to reach ’em down deep.”
“Did she let you. . . ?”

Riley twiddled his fingers in the air, then held them to his
nose and sniffed.

“What about the other stuff?” Dexter asked.

“That’s next, buddy-row. As soon as I want it.”

“Why don’t you want to? I thought you said she’d do any-
thing.”

Riley’s thick eyebrows lowered, shading the rage that
glinted in his eyes. He turned and started back down the trail
toward the creek. “Ain’t no damned birds left to shoot. Your
loud-assed yakking has scared them all away.”

Dexter hurried after him. The edge of the sky was red and
golden. The forest was darker now, and the moist evening air
had softened the leaves under their feet. Mom would be waking
up soon to start on her second drunk of the day.

They walked in silence, Riley hunched over with his rifle
tilted toward the ground, Dexter trailing like a puppy that had
been kicked by its master. It was nearly dark when they
reached the clearing. Riley jumped over the creek and looked
back. His eyes flashed, but his face was nothing but sharp
shadows.

40

Scott Nicholson

Dexter hurdled the creek, caving in a section of muddy
bank and nearly sliding into the water. He grabbed a root with
one hand and scrambled up on his elbows and knees, his
belly on the rim of the bank. When he looked up, Riley was
pointing the rifle at him. Dad had taught Dexter about gun
safety, and the first rule, the main rule, was to never point a
loaded gun at somebody. Even a dickwit like Riley ought to
know that.

“You ever kill anybody?” Riley was wearing his jack-o’-
lantem expression again, but this time the grin was full of
jagged darkness.

“Kill anybody?” Dexter tried not to whimper. He didn’t
want Riley to know how scared he was.

“Blood sacrifice.”

Riley was just crazy enough to kill him, to leave him out
here leaking in the night, on the same ground where Dexter
had carved up a dozen animals. Dexter tried to think of how
Dad would handle this situation. “Quit screwing around,
Riley.”

“If I want to screw around, I’ll do it with Tammy Lynn.”

“I didn’t mean nothing when I said that.”

“I can get it any time I want it.”

“Sure, sure,” Dexter was talking too fast, but he couldn’t
stop the words. He focused on the tip of Riley’s boot, the
scuffed leather and the smear of grease. “You know how to tell
’em. You’re the magic man.”

Riley lowered the gun a little. “Damn straight.”

It was almost as if Dexter were talking to the boot, he was
close enough to kiss it. “Just gotta tell ’em that you love ’em,
right?”

Riley laughed then, and cool sweat trickled down the back
of Dexter’s neck. Maybe Dexter wasn’t going to die after all,
here among the bones and rotten meat of his victims. The
boot moved away and Dexter dared to look up. Riley was
among the thicket of holly and laurel now, the gun pointed
away, and Dexter scrambled to his feet.

He saw for the first time how creepy the clearing was, with
the trees spreading knotty arms all around and the laurels
crouched like big animals. The place was alive , hungry, hold-
ing its breath and waiting for the next kill.

“Tell you what,” Riley said, growing taller in the twilight, a
looming force. “Come here tomorrow after school. Be real quiet
and watch from behind the bushes. I’ll get her all the way.”

Dexter nodded in the dark. Then he remembered. “But

tomorrow’s Halloween.”

The Hounds of Love 41

“What the hell else you got to do — go around begging for
candy with the babies?”

He couldn’t let Riley know he was scared. “No, it’s just — ”

“Better fucking be here,” Riley said.

Dexter ran down the trail toward home, his stomach flut-
tering. He was half-scared and half-excited about what he was
going to witness, what he dared not miss.

Mom was slumped over the kitchen table, a pile of empty
beer cans around her chair. An overturned bottle leaked brown
liquid into her lap. Dexter hurried to the bed before she woke
up and asked for a good-night hug or else decided he needed
a beating for something- or- other.

The next day after school, he went straight from the bus
to the clearing. The sky was cloudy and heavy with dampness.
He heard voices as he crawled on his hands and knees
through the undergrowth. He looked through a gap in the
branches. Riley sat on the ground, talking to Tammy Lynn,
who was leaning against the big oak tree.

Tammy Lynn’s blond hair was streaked with red dye. She
already looked fourteen. Her chest stretched the fabric of her
white sweater. Freckles littered her face. She had cheeks like
a chipmunk’s, puffed and sad.

Riley rubbed her knee beneath the hem of her dress. He
glanced to his left at the bushes where Dexter was hiding.
Dexter gulped. His stomach was puke-shivery.

“I love you,” Riley said to Tammy Lynn.

She giggled. She wore lipstick, and her mouth was a thin
red scar across her pale face. Riley leaned forward and kissed
her.

He pulled his face away. She touched her lower lip where
her lipstick had smeared. Riley’s hand snaked farther under
her dress. She clamped her legs closed.

“Don’t, Riley,” she whispered.

“Aw, come on, baby.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Hey, I said I loved you. It’s okay to do it if I love you.”

“I’m scared.”

Riley stopped rubbing her. He spoke so low that Dexter
barely heard. “Pretend you’re a princess and I’m a prince, and
we’re in a fairy tale. Don’t you love me?”

Tammy Lynn lowered her eyes. Riley cupped her chin and
tilted her face up. Her cheeks were pink from shame or fear.

“Don’t you love me?” Riley repeated, and this time he was
wearing his jack-o’-lantem face. Tammy Lynn nodded. Dexter’s
stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a handful of hot worms.

42

Scott Nicholson

“If you love me, then you owe me,” Riley said. She shook
her head from side to side, her hair swaying against her
shoulders.

Riley suddenly drove his hand deeper under her dress.
Tammy Lynn gave a squeal of surprise and tried to twist away.
Riley grabbed her sweater and pulled her toward the ground.
Bits of bark clung to her back.

“No,” she moaned, flailing at his hands as he wrestled her
to the ground. One of her silver-polished nails raked across
Riley’s nose. He drew back his arm and slapped her. She cried
out in pain.

Dexter hadn’t counted on it being like this. He almost ran
out from under the bushes to help her. But he thought of Riley
and the gun. Dexter could barely breathe, his gut clenching
like he was going to throw up, but he couldn’t look away.

Riley pinned her down with one arm and unzipped his
blue jeans, then covered her mouth as he pulled her dress up.
Riley moved between her legs and Tammy Lynn screamed into
his palm. They struggled for a few seconds more before Riley
shoved away from her. He stood and fastened his pants.
Tammy Lynn was crying.

“I told you I loved you,” Riley said, as if he were disgusted
at some cheap toy that had broken. Then he looked at the
laurels and winked, but Dexter saw that his hands were
shaking. Dexter hoped they couldn’t see him. The shiver in his
stomach turned into a drumroll of tiny ice punches.

Tammy Lynn was wailing now. Her dress was bunched
around her waist, her panties twisted against her white thighs.
Scraps of leaves stuck to her ankle socks. One of her shoes
had fallen off.

“Works like magic,” Riley said, too loudly, his voice a
hoarse blend of triumph and fear. “I told you I loved you,
didn’t I?”

He kicked some loose leaves toward her and walked down
the trail. He would want Dexter to follow so he could crow
about the conquest. But Dexter’s muscles were jelly. He
couldn’t take his eyes away from Tammy Lynn.

She sat up, her sobs less forceful now. She slowly pulled
up her panties and pushed her dress hem down to her knees,
moving like one of those movie zombies. She stared at her fin-
gers as if some tiny treasure had been ripped out of her
hands. Tears streamed down her face, and a strand of blood
creased one side of her chin. Her lower lip was swollen.

She stood on her skinny legs, wobbling like a foal. Her
dress hung unevenly. She looked around the clearing with

The Hounds of Love

43

eyes that were too wide. Dexter shrank back under the laurels,
afraid to be seen, afraid that he was supposed to help her and
couldn’t.

Blood ran down her legs, the bright red streaks of it vivid
against her skin. Drops spattered onto the leaves between her
feet. She looked down and saw the blood and made a choking
sound in her throat. She waved her hands in the air for a
moment, then ran into the woods, not down the trail but in
the direction of the road that bordered one side of the forest.
She’d forgotten her shoe.

Dexter lifted himself from the ground and stared at the
dark drops of blood. Rain began to fall, slightly thicker than
the mist. He parted the waxy laurel leaves and stepped into
the clearing.

Blood. Blood sacrifice. On Halloween, when anything could
happen. The clearing was alive again, the sky waiting and the
trees watching, the ground hungry.

Dexter felt dizzy, as if his head was packed with soggy cot-
ton. He knelt suddenly and vomited. When his stomach was
empty, he leaned back and let the rain run down his face. That
way, Riley wouldn’t be able to tell that he had been crying.

He looked down at the shoe for a moment, then stumbled
down the trail toward home. He expected Riley to be waiting
by the porch, the sleeves rolled up on his denim jacket, arms
folded. But Riley was gone. Dexter went in the house.

“Hey, honey,” Mom said, not looking up as the screen door
slammed. She was watching a rerun of “Highway to Heaven.”

“Find your rabbit?” she asked.

“No.” '

“Dinner will be ready soon.”

“I’m not hungry. I’m going to my room.”

“You ain’t going trick-or-treat?”

“I don’t want to.”

“You sick?” She glanced away from the television and
looked at him suspiciously. The smell of old beer and the food
scraps on the counter brought back Dexter’s nausea.

“No. Just got some homework,” he managed to lie through
quivering lips.

“Homework, like hell. When you ever done homework?
Your clothes are dirty. What have you been up to?”

“I fell at school. You know it was raining?”

“And me with laundry on the line,” she said, as if it were
the sky’s fault, and there was nothing a body could do when
the whole damned sky was against them. She looked back to
the television, took two swallows of beer, and belched. He

44

Scott Nicholson

wondered what she would give out if any trick- or- treaters
dared come down their dangerous street and knock on the
door.

On the television screen, Michael Landon was sticking his
nose into somebody else’s business again. Dexter looked at
the actor’s smug close-up for a moment, then tiptoed to his
room. His thoughts suffocated him in the coffin of his bed.

Maybe he should have picked up Tammy Lynn’s shoe.
Then he could give it back to her, even if he couldn’t give back
the other things. Like in Cinderella, sort of. But then she
would know. Besides, that was like fairy tale love, and Dexter
didn’t ever want to love anything as long as he lived.

Anyway, Riley had a gun. Dexter thought of Riley pointing
the gun at him, that moment in the woods when he thought
the tip of Riley’s boot would be the last thing he ever saw. The
boot, the shoe, the blood. He finally fell asleep to the sound of
whatever movie Mom was using for a drinking buddy that
night.

He dreamed of Tammy Lynn. She was splayed out
beneath him in the clearing, the collar tight around her neck,
the leash wrapped around his left fist. She was naked, but her
features were formless, milky abstractions. He was holding
his knife against her cheek. Her eyes were twin beggars, pools
of scream, wet horror. He woke up sweating, his stomach
shivery, his eyes moist. He’d wet the bed again.

Rain drummed off the roof. He thought of the blood,
watered down and spreading now, soaking into the soil. Her
blood sacrifice, the price she paid for love. He didn’t get back
to sleep.

He dressed just as the rain dwindled. By the time he went
outside, the sun was fighting through a smudge of clouds. The
air was as thick as syrup, and nobody stirred in the houses
along the street. The whole world had a hangover.

Dexter went down the trail. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he
wanted to relive the day before, the struggle, the tears, the
drops of blood. Maybe he wanted to get the shoe.

Water fell off the green leaves overhead as he wound his
way into the woods. His shirt was soaked by the time he
reached the clearing. The forest was alive with dripping, flex-
ing limbs, trees drinking and growing, the creek fat and
muddy. A fungal, earthy stench hung in the air. He stepped
into the clearing.

The ground was scarred with gashes of upturned soil.
Brown holes. Empty. Where Dexter had buried the pets.

Blood sacrifice. Works like magic. Especially on Halloween.

The Hounds of Love 45

Dexter tried to breathe. The shivering in his belly turned
into a wooden knot.

Twigs snapped damply behind the stand of laurels where
he had hid the day before.

No. Dead things didn’t come back to life. That only hap-
pened in stupid movies.

Tammy Lynn’s shoe was gone. No way would she come
back here. It had to be Riley, playing a trick. But how did Riley
know where he had buried the animals?

He heard a whimpering gargle that sounded like a cross
between a cluck and a growl, maybe a broken meow. The lau-
rels shimmered. Something was moving in there.

“Riley?” he whispered hoarsely.

The gargle.

“Come on out, dickwit,” Dexter said, louder.

He saw a flash of fur, streaked and caked with dirt. He fled
down the trail. His boots hardly touched the ground, were
afraid to touch the ground, the ground that had been poi-
soned with blood magic. He thought he heard something fol-
lowing as he crossed into the yard, soft padding footfalls or
slitherings in the brush, but his heart was hammering so
hard in his ears that he couldn’t be sure. He burst into the
house and locked the door, then leaned with his back against
it until he caught his breath.

Something thudded onto the porch, clattering along the
wooden boards. Behind that sharp sound, a rattling like claws
or thick toenails, came a dragging wet noise.

Clickety -click, sloosh. Clickety -click, sloosh.

It stopped just outside the door.

Dexter couldn’t move.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Mom stood under the
archway leading into the kitchen. Her face was pinched, eyes
distended, skin splotched. Greasy blades of hair clung to her
forehead.

Dexter gasped, swallowed. “The — ”

She scowled at him, her fists clenched. He knew this had
better be good. “ — I was just out running.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, worrying me like that.
Nothing but trouble.” She rubbed her temples. Her smell filled
the small room, sweetly pungent like a bushel of decaying
fruit. Dexter put his ear to the door leading to the porch. The
sounds were gone.

“What are you so pale for? You said you wasn’t sick.”

Dexter shrank away from her.

“Now get up off that floor. Lord knows, I got enough work

46

Scott Nicholson

around here already without putting you in three changes of
clothes ever goddamned day.”

Dexter slunk past her into the living room.

“Guess I’d better get that laundry in,” Mom said to no one
in particular. Her hand gripped the doorknob, and Dexter
wanted to shout, scream, slap her away. But of course he
couldn’t. He could only watch with churning bowels as she
opened the door and went outside. Dexter followed her as far
as the screen door.

The porch was empty.

Of course it was. Monsters were for movies, or dumb sto-
ries. He was acting like a fourth grader. Stuff coming back
from the dead? Horseshit, as Dad would say.

Still, he didn’t go outside the rest of the evening, even
though the sky cleared. Mom was in a better mood after the
first six-pack. Dexter watched cartoons, then played video
games for a while. He tried not to listen for clickety-sloosh.

One of Mom’s boyfriends came over. It was the one with
the raggedy mustache, the one who called Dexter “Little Man.”
Mom and the man disappeared into her bedroom, then Dexter
heard arguing and glass breaking. The boyfriend left after an
hour or so. Mom didn’t come back out. Dexter went to bed
without supper.

He lay there thinking about magic, about blood sacrifice.
About the open graves in the pet cemetery that should have
been filled with bones and decaying flesh and mossy fur and
shaved whiskers and scales. He tried to erase his memory of the
creature in the bushes, the thing that had followed him home.
He couldn’t sleep, even though he was worn from tension.

His eyes kept traveling to the cold glass between his cur-
tains. The streetlight threw shadows that striped the bed,
swaying like live things. He tried to tell himself that it was only
the trees getting blown by the wind. Nothing was going to get
him, especially not all those animals he’d dismembered. No,
those animals had loved him. They would never hurt him.

He’d almost calmed himself when he heard the soft click
of paws on the windowsill. It was the sound the cats had made
when they wanted to be let in. Dexter’s mom wanted them out
of the house, because of the hairballs and the stains they left
in the corners. But Dexter always let them in at night to curl
on top of the blankets at his feet. At least for a week or so,
until he got tired of them.

He didn’t have any cats now, so it couldn’t be a cat at the
window. Dexter pulled the blankets up to his eyes. Something
bumped against the glass, moist and dull, like a nose.

The Hounds of Love

47

No no no not a nose.

He wrapped the pillow around his ears. The noise was
replaced by a rapid thumping against the outside wall. Dexter
hunched under the blankets and counted down from a hun-
dred, the way he did when he was six and Dad had first told
him about the monsters that lived in the closet.

One hundred (no monsters), ninety -nine (no monsters),
ninety -eight (no monsters) . . .

After three times through, he no longer heard the click-
ings or thumpings. He fell asleep with the blankets twisted
around him.

Dexter awoke not knowing where he was. He sat up
quickly and looked out the window. Nothing but sky and
Sunday sunshine.

Dad picked him up that afternoon. Dexter had to walk
down to the corner to meet him. He kept a close eye on the
woods, in case anything stirred in the leaves. He thought he
heard a scratching sound, but by then he was close enough
to get inside the truck.

Dad looked past Dexter to the house. “My own goddamned
roof,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hi, Dad.”

“I suppose she filled you up with all kinds of horseshit
about me.” His hands were clenched into fists around the
steering wheel. Dexter knew what those fists could do. There
had to be a way out, a way to calm him. Riley’s words came to
Dexter out of the blue: Gotta tell ’em that you love ’em.

Yeah. Works like magic. He’d seen how that turned out.
Got you what you wanted, but somebody had to pay.

“She didn’t say nothing.”

“Any men been around?”

“Nobody. Just us. We — I miss you.”

Dad’s fists relaxed and he mussed Dexter’s hair. “I miss
you, too, boy.”

Dexter wanted to ask when Dad was moving back in, but
didn’t want him to get angry again. Better not to mention
Mom, or home, or anything else.

“What say we go down to the dump? Got me a new Ruger
to break in.” Dexter managed a weak smile as Dad pulled the
truck away from the curb.

They spent the day at the landfill, Dexter breaking glass
bottles and Dad prowling in the trash for salvage, shooting
rats when they showed their pointy faces. Dexter felt no joy
when the rodents exploded into red rags. Dad was a good
shot.

48

Scott Nicholson

They ate fast food hamburgers on the way back in. It was
almost dark when Dad dropped him off at the end of the
street. Dexter hoped none of Mom’s boyfriends were around.
He opened the door to hop out, then hesitated, remembering
the clickety-sloosh. He had managed to forget, to fool himself
out under the clear sky, surrounded by filth and rusty metal
and busted furniture. In the daytime, all the nightmares had
dissolved into vapor.

Dexter looked toward the house with one hand still on the
truck door. Dad must have figured he was reluctant to leave,
that a son missed his father, and that no goddamned snotty-
eyed bitch had a right to keep a father from his own flesh-and-
blood. “It’s okay. I’ll see you again in a week or so,” Dad said.

Dexter searched desperately for something to say, any-
thing to put off that hundred-foot walk across the dark yard.
“Dad?”

“What?”

“Do you love Mom?”

Dexter could see only Dad’s silhouette against the back-
ground of distant streetlights. Crickets chirped in the woods.
After a long moment, Dad relaxed and sighed. “Yeah. ’Course
I do.”

Dexter looked along the street, at the forest that seemed
to creep up to the house’s foundation. “You ever been scared?”
“We’re all scared of something or other. Is something
bothering you?”

Dexter shook his head, then realized Dad probably
couldn’t see him in the dark. “No,” he said, then, “Do you
believe in magic?”

Dad laughed, his throat thick with spittle. “What kind of
horseshit has she been filling you up with?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“The bitch.”

“Guess I better go, Dad.”

“Uh-huh.”

“See you.” He wanted to tell Dad that he loved him, but he
was too scared.

“Say, whatever happened to that little puppy of yours?”
“Got runned over.”

“Damn. I’ll see Clem about getting you another.”

“No, that’s okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Bye now.”

“Yeah.”

The Hounds of Love

49

Dexter stepped away from the truck and watched the tail
lights shrink as Dad roared away. The people in the few neigh-
boring houses were plastered to the television. Blue light
flickered from their living room windows. The trees were like
tall skeletons with too many bones.

Leaves skittered across the road, scratching at the
asphalt. A dog barked a few streets over. At least, it sounded
like a dog. A good old red-blooded, living and breathing turd
factory. Never hurt nobody, most likely.

He walked into the scraggly yard, reluctant to leave the
cone of the last streetlight. He thought about going up the
street and cutting across the other end of the yard, but that
way was scary, too. The autumn forest hovered on every side.
The forest with its clickety-sloosh things.

He tried to whistle as he walked, but his throat was dry,
as if he had swallowed a spiderweb. He thought about run-
ning, but that was no good. In every stupid movie where dead
things come back, they always get you if you run.

So he took long, slow steps and kept his head bent for-
ward, because he thought he could hear better that way.
Halfway home. The lights were on in the kitchen, and he
headed for the rectangle of light that stretched from the back
door across the lawn.

He was twenty feet away from the safety of light when he
heard it. Clickety-sloosh. But that wasn’t all. The gargle was
also mixed in, along with the tortured meow and the rustle of
leaves. The noise was coming from behind a forsythia bush
near the back steps. The thing was under the porch. In the
place where Turd Factory had napped during sunny after-
noons.

Dexter stopped.

Run for it? They always get you if you run. But, now that
he thought about it, they always get you anyway. Especially if
you were the bad guy. And Dexter was the bad guy. Maybe not
as bad as Riley. But at least Riley knew about love, which
probably protected him from bad things.

Yell for Mom? She was probably dead drunk on the couch.
If she did step out on the porch, the thing would disappear.
He was sure of that, because the thing was his and only his.

And if he yelled, he knew what would happen. Mom would
turn on the porch light and see nothing, not even a stray hair,
just a scooped-out dirt place behind the forsythia. And she’d
say, “What the hell do you mean, waking up half the neigh-
borhood because you heard something under the porch? They
ain’t nothing there.”

50

Scott Nicholson

And she’d probably slap him across the face. She’d wait
until they were inside, so the neighbors wouldn’t call Social
Services. Maybe she’d use the buckle-end of the belt, if she
was drinking liquor tonight instead of beer.

He took an uncertain step backward. Back to the curb, to
the streetlights? Then what? You had to go home sometime.
The thing gargled, a raspy mewling. It was waiting.

A monster that could disappear could do anything. Even
if he ran to the road, the thing could clickety-sloosh out of the
sewer grate, or pop out from behind one of the junk cars that
skulked in the roadside weeds. The thing could drop from the
limbs of that big red maple at the edge of the lawn. You can’t
fight blood magic when it builds a monster on Halloween.

He had a third choice. Walk right on up. Keep trying to
whistle. Not scared at all. No-sirree. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

And that was really the only choice. The thing wasn’t
going away. Dexter stepped into the rectangle of light and
pursed his lips. He was still trying to whistle as he put his foot
on the bottom step. Monsters weren’t real, were they?

The bush shook, shedding a few of its late yellow leaves.
The gargle lengthened into a soughing purr. Dexter tried to
keep his eyes on the door, the door that was splintered at the
bottom where the puppy and cats had scratched to get inside.
The door with its dented brass handle, the door with its duct-
taped pane of glass, the door that opened onto the love and
safety promised by the white light of home. The door became
a blur, a shimmering wedge lost in his tears as the thing
moved out from the shadows.

He closed his eyes and waited for the bite, the tearing of
his blue jeans and shin meat, the rattle of tooth on bone. He
stiffened in anticipation of cold claws to belly, hot saliva on rib
cage, rough tongue to that soft place just underneath the
chin.

Clickety-sloosh.

His heart skipped a beat and restarted. He was still alive.
No pain yet. He tried to breathe. The air tasted like rusty
meat.

Maybe it had disappeared. But he could hear it, panting
through moist nostrils. Just beneath him. Close enough so
that he could feel the wind of its mewling against his leg.

Savoring the kill? Just as Dexter had done, all those after-
noons and Saturday mornings spent kneeling in the forest,
with his pocket knife and his pets and his frightened, lonely
tears? He knew that fear was the worst part, the part that
made your belly all puke-shivery.

The Hounds of Love

51

He had to show his fear. That was only fair. He owed them
that much. And if he looked scared enough, maybe the thing
would have mercy, just rip open that big vein in his neck so
he could die fast. Then the thing could clickety-sloosh on
back into the woods, drag its pieces to the grave and bury its
own bones.

Dexter tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. Still the thing
mewled and gargled. Waiting was the worst part. You could
hold your breath, pray, scream, run. They always get you any-
way.

Still he waited.

He blinked. The world was nothing but streaks, a gash of
light, a fuzz of gray that was the house, a bigger fuzz of black
night. Something nudged against his kneecap. He looked
down, his chest hot as a brick oven.

It hadn’t disappeared.

Two eyes met his. One round and dark, without a white,
hooded by an exotic flap of skin. The other eye was heavy-
lidded, yellow and reptilian.

Behind the eyes, lumps of meat sloped into a forehead.
Ragged pink where the pieces met, leaking a thin jelly. Part
fur, part feather, part scale, part exposed bone. A raw rooster
comb dangled behind one misshapen ear.

Beneath the crushed persimmon of a nose were whiskers
and wide lips, the lips parted to show teeth of all kinds. Puppy
teeth, kitty fangs, fishy nubs of cartilage, orange bits of beak
like candy corn.

Hulking out behind the massive dripping head were more
slabs of tenderloin, breast and wing, fin and shell. The horri-
ble coalition rippled with maggots and rot and magic.

The lump of head nuzzled against his leg. The juice
soaked through his jeans.

Oh God.

He wanted the end to come quickly now, because he had
given the thing his fear and that was all he had. He had paid
what he owed. But he knew in the dark hutch of his heart that
the thing wasn’t finished. He opened his eyes again.

The strange eyes stared up into his. Twin beggars.

You had to let them feed. On fear or whatever else they
needed.

Again the thing nuzzled, mewling wetly. Behind the
shape, something slithered rhythmically against the leaves.

A rope of gray and black and tan fur. A broken tail.

Wagging.

Wagging.

52

Scott Nicholson

Waiting and wanting.

Forgiving.

Dexter wept without shame. When the thing nuzzled the
third time, he reached down with a trembling hand and
stroked between the putrid arching ears.

Riley’s voice came to him, unbidden, as if from some
burning bush or darkening cloud: “Gotta tell ’em that you love
’em.”

Dexter knelt, trembling. The thing licked under the soft
part of his chin. It didn’t matter that the tongue was scaly and
flecked with forest dirt. And cold, grave cold, long winter cold.

When you let them love you, you owe them something in
return.

He hugged the beast, even as it shuddered toward him,
clickety-sloosh, with chunks dribbling down. And still the tail
whipped the ground, faster now, drumming out its affection.

Suddenly the yard exploded with light.

The back door opened. Mom stood on the porch, one hand
on the light switch, the other holding her worn flannel robe
closed across her chest. “What the hell’s going on out here?”

Dexter looked up from where he was kneeling at the bot-
tom of the steps. His arms were empty and dry.

“Don’t just stand there with your jaw hanging down. You
was supposed to be here an hour ago.” Her voice went up a
notch, both louder and higher. “Why, I’ve got a good mind
to—”

She stopped herself, looking across the lawn at the houses
down the street. Dexter glanced under the porch. He saw
nothing in the thick shadows.

Mom continued, lower, with more menace. “I’ve got a good
mind to take the belt to you.”

Dexter stood and rubbed the dirt off his pants.

“Now get your ass in here, and don’t make me have to tell
you twice.”

Dexter looked around quickly at the perimeter of forest, at
the black thickets where the thing would hide until Mom was
gone. He went up the steps and through the door, past her
hot, drunken glare and stale breath. He shuffled straight to
his room and closed the door. The beating would come or it
wouldn’t. It didn’t matter.

That night, when he heard the scratching at the windowsill
and the bump against the glass, he opened the window. The
thing crawled inside and onto the bed. It had brought him a
gift: Riley’s bloody boot. When you loved something, it owed
you in return. Maybe it had carried the other one to Tammy

The Hounds of Love

53

Lynn’s house, where it might have delivered her lost shoe on
Halloween, the night of its birth. To thank her for the gift of
blood.

The nightmare creature curled at Dexter’s feet, licking at
the boot. The thing’s stench filled the room, bits of its rotted
flesh staining the blankets. Dexter didn’t sleep that night, lis-
tening to the mewling rasp of the creature’s breathing, won-
dering where the mouth was, knowing that he’d found a friend
for life.

And tomorrow, when he got off the bus, the thing would
greet him. It would wait until the bus rolled out of sight, then
drag itself from the woods and rub against his leg, begging to
be stroked. It would lick his face and wait for his hug.

And together they would run deep between the trees,
Dexter at one end of the leash, struggling to keep up while the
thing clickety-slooshed about and buried its dripping nose in
the dirt, first here, then there. Once in a while into the creek,
to wet its dangling gills. Stopping only to gaze lovingly at its
master, showing those teeth that had done something bad to
Riley and could probably do it again.

Maybe if Dexter fed its hunger for affection, it wouldn’t
have a hunger for other things.

Dexter would give it what it needed. He would feed it all
he had. Through autumn’s fog and into the December snows,
through long spring evenings and into summer’s flies. A mas-
ter and its pet.

You owe them that much.

That’s just the way love is.

They always get you anyway.

Fadin g Quayle, Dancing Q uayle

CHARLES COLEMAN FINLAY

The top circle in the traffic light looked pink, faint pink,
like a single drop of blood in a cup full of water.

Andy Quayle heard a voice, his own, say, “Red.”

His leg twitched, his foot hit the brake, and the minivan
skidded to a stop. The bumper slammed into an old man
crossing the street and he went down hard. Andy leaned over
the dashboard to see what had happened.

The old man stood up, stared at Andy with dead white
eyes, and shuffled off, his arm bent akimbo. A jagged sliver of
bone poked through a fresh tear in his windbreaker’s sleeve.
The windbreaker was pale blue, the color of veins under skin.

“Navy,” said Andy’s voice.

He watched the pale blue coat bob across the street. The
old man tripped over the curb and crashed to the ground. He
tried to push himself up, but the broken arm kept folding in
half.

Something crawled in the road beside the old man, a
small creature that was mostly head, and the head mostly
mouth, and the mouth an open, hungry, toothless maw.

“Baby,” said Andy’s voice.

His head swiveled. A baby seat was belted in the minivan
behind him. His hand fumbled at the latch. The door swung
open. He staggered over to the baby.

The baby sat up. It shoved an old bone into its mouth,
sucking on it like a pacifier.

“Slurpy, slurpy,” said Andy’s voice.

He lifted the baby and turned around. The empty van
rolled slowly down the road away from him. Andy tucked the
baby under his arm and lurched after it.

“Brake,” said Andy’s voice, and his free hand popped up
to slap his forehead.

The van rolled through a pool of pale green transmission
fluid and punched into the side of an abandoned car, making
a slight hiccup as its headlight shattered. A woman in T-shirt
and jeans climbed out of the wreck’s back seat, an arm bone
clutched in her teeth, and ran away.

Andy slid the van door open and fastened the squirming
baby into the car seat.

55

Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle

“Safety first,” said Andy’s voice. “Gootchey-goo.”

“Gah!” said the baby, swinging the bone at him.

He took the driver’s seat, backed up, and continued driving
down the street, tires crunching over broken glass.

He passed a house, a house, a house, a church — no stop.
Corner — turn. Store, store, bank, store — no stop. KFC. Meat.

Meat — must eat!

His leg twitched. The van skidded to a stop. Andy smacked
into the steering column.

He shook off the impact and looked more closely. Over-
turned tables straddled broken window frames. Empty paper
buckets sprouted across the parking lot like mushrooms in the
forest. The smell of old, cold grease hung in the air.

But no meat.

There was no more meat anywhere. Only hunger. Even his
hunger faded, like washed-out colors, until it was hardly an
itch worth scratching.

Andy heard his own voice sobbing.

The back of his hand rubbed at his eye sockets and ended
up damp. His leg straightened and the van sped forward
again.

Around a corner, he saw a school. He accelerated past the
One Way — Do Not Enter sign, jumped the curb, and drove over
the grass to park by the side doors.

“Work,” said Andy’s voice. “Late.”

His hand switched off the ignition and tugged the emer-
gency brake until it caught.

“Brake,” said Andy’s voice, and his head nodded.

He hopped out of the van and hurried over to the side door.
The baby cried as Andy got close. Dull thuds emanated
through the hollow core steel. With both hands he managed to
depress the latch until it clicked.

The door swung open, spilling a mass of bodies in a moan-
ing heap. Some stood up and began to wander away. Andy
tripped over the rest to enter the building.

Andy wandered the halls. In the gym, a tall boy attempted
to dribble a flat basketball. A very short man with a long beard
stood at the front of one classroom, writing with a piece of
chalk so small his nails scraped the word-covered blackboard
in a steady, rhythmic screech. In the main office, a chubby
woman hunched over the copier, flinching every time the
machine whirred and the light flashed. Reams of loose paper
carpeted the floor, all printed with the same thing. Her blank
eyes fixed on Andy.

“You’ll. Love. This. It’s. Funny.” she said, her pudgy fingers

56 Charles Coleman Finlay

thrusting out a fresh copy. “Top. Ten. Things. You. Can. Do.
With. A. Brain.”

He jerked away from her. The stench of burned coffee
leaked out of the teachers’ lounge and filled the hall. He
walked on until he came to the cafeteria, where two boys
threw paper wads at each other across the tables.

“Hey, stop that,” said Andy’s voice.

The kids looked at him. “Uh, uh,” they said, but they
stopped.

Andy saw the art room and went to it.

Construction paper covered the floor. Big sloppy swirls of
acrylic paint decorated the cabinet doors and desktops. The
throwing wheel whirred in one corner. The kiln switch read on
but Andy didn’t see it glowing.

He untaped the pedal on the wheel to stop its spinning.
He tried to wash the brushes in the sink, but the bristles were
stiff and ruined. Sweat poured off his head. The kiln switch
read on so he unplugged it. Then he scooped paper into the
trash can until it overflowed. An empty trash can sat in the
cafeteria. His body turned to get it.

He saw a girl skulking around a corner at the end of the
hallway. Young woman. Girl. Young woman. Girl. She wore
go-go boots, and a velvet skirt, and a sheer blouse that clung
to her slender frame. The colors were all gray, like ash.

“Black,” said Andy’s voice.

She wore so much patchouli that Andy’s nose couldn’t
smell anything else. She carried a large, bulging purse over
her shoulder and carried two flat cardboard boxes in her
hands. She wobbled slightly under their weight.

Andy lurched forward. “Can I help you?” he heard his
voice ask.

The girl shrieked and dropped the boxes, which fell smack
on the ground. Andy bent to pick them up as she jumped
backward, pulling an aerosol can and lighter from her purse.
“Stay back!”

“Your hair looks nice,” said Andy’s voice. Something
twitched at his nose, hiding behind the powerful patchouli. A
hunger rumbled low in his belly.

“Are you for real? Aren’t you a — ?”

“Art teacher,” said Andy’s voice.

“Like, shit. It’s so hard to tell anymore.” Her shoulders
sagged and she leaned against the wall. She thrust the can
and lighter into her bag, and tilted her head at the boxes in
Andy’s hands. “You carry those. Wait here — I’ll get a couple
more.”

Fading Quayle, Dancing Quay I e 57

Andy stood rooted to the spot. She returned from the cafe-
teria storeroom with three more cases.

“Extra’s for you,” she said, slipping it onto his pile. “I used
to work in the school cafeteria, so I knew there’d be stuff here.
We better get going before any of those zombies notice us. It’s
only three blocks away.”

They walked out the exit and across the playground.
When she stopped to shift the bag on her shoulder, Andy con-
tinued on. It was daylight, late afternoon, although it felt
almost dark. Andy lifted his head to the sky. A car alarm
blasted somewhere far away. A mourning dove cooed in a tree,
just above the branch where a zombie squirrel gnawed on an
empty walnut shell.

Someone screamed right behind him.

Andy pivoted. The boys from the cafeteria clutched at the
girl. One held her arm, and she spun, pounding him on the
head with a blackjack, using his body to block the second
one’s attack.

He set his cases on the ground and staggered toward
them, grabbing the two boys by the hair and slamming their
heads together. They made a hollow clonk, so he did it again.
Then he grabbed their collars and pushed them toward the
school building.

“Detention,” said Andy’s voice.

“Uh, uh,” the boys mouthed in protest. But they went.

“Shit, shit, shit You just saved my life, teach.” She stood
there, hands clutching her chest, head leaning forward. She
looked at the ground, where the dropped boxes had split at
the seams and cans rolled in different directions. “We can’t
carry these three blocks, not this way.”

Andy’s forefinger jumped out at the end of his arm, point-
ing toward the parking lot. “Minivan,” said Andy’s voice.

“Oh, good thinking!” Using a broken box like a basket, she
gathered about half the cans. “Let’s go. Before they come back.”

He walked toward the van.

“Wait — aren’t you going to get those boxes?”

Andy stopped, turned, saw that he’d walked past them. He
picked them up and carried them over to the van. He pulled
open the door and placed them on the seat beside the baby.
Then he climbed into the driver’s seat, turning the ignition.

The passenger door opened and she slid in next to him.
“What an ugly kid,” she said. Her eyes flicked back and forth
from the baby to Andy. “Is it — ?”

“Baby,” said Andy’s voice.

“Aw, I’m sorry, that must be so — whoa!”

58

Charles Coleman Finlay

Something bounced off the inside of the windshield and
landed on her lap. She held it up near her chest. The buttons
gaped open on her blouse, revealing the shy gray bra under-
neath. Beside it, her skin appeared almost translucent, like
skim milk.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Breast,” said Andy’s voice. His eyes shifted back to the
object in her hand. “Bone.”

“Breastbone? Like, ewwwww!” She threw it out the win-
dow and wiped her hands on her velvet skirt. “I’d guess you
know all that stuff ’cause of art. Like, anatomy. We want to go
that way — ” She pointed.

Andy’s leg straightened. The van leaped forward, crashed
through the fence, hopped over the curb, and scraped bottom
on the road. He veered around an abandoned school bus. One
of the tires flapped flat on the road. The van listed sideways.

“That’s cool, just keep driving,” she said. “Like, you forget
to think of the most basic stuff, y’know, running all the time.
I could have driven a car over to the school.”

She directed him to an old brick warehouse just off the
main street. A display window in front framed a big screen TV
with a video camera aimed at the sidewalk. A large crowd had
collected. Most stood there watching themselves wave at the
camera, though a few aimed remote controls at the picture,
their thumbs rising and falling with a range of vigorous arm
gestures.

“Just keep driving,” she said, ducking and shoving his
head down to the dashboard. “Just go past them. Down to the
next alley, and tuuuuuurn — ” she extended the ur- sound until
they reached it “ — here!”

He turned there, the metal hub of the wheel screeching as
it ground to a stop under a dead neon sign. Other vehicles
lined the alley — an SUV, a sedan, a convertible — among a
scattering of human artifacts and remains.

“We’re downstairs in the club,” she said, jumping out. “I
better go tell them you’re coming. We kinda hate surprises.”

Andy got out and waited. At the open end of the alley, a
bald man with a beer belly and a beaked nose shoved a
recliner down the street toward the big screen TV. He stopped
and stared at Andy. Andy stared back. The door creaked open
behind him. The bald man stared at something behind Andy.
Andy turned.

She gestured at him to hurry.

“Come on,” she said. “Bring the boxes.”

Andy piled up all the boxes. He went through the propped

59

Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle

open door, put his foot out onto nothing, and tumbled down
the steps. The door swung open at the bottom. Andy looked
up.

An unshaven man in army fatigues, with skin the color of
weak tea, stared down. He was covered in some cologne so
strong Andy coughed. Behind it lurked the scent of something
else, something almost familiar. The man pointed a shotgun
at Andy’s face.

“He’s a zombie! He’s a damn zombie!”

The girl slammed her hand against the barrel and the
blast went wide of Andy’s head. A can exploded and a shower
of green beans fell on Andy.

“He’s an art teacher, shithead. He, like, saved my life back
at school.”

Andy pushed himself upright and staggered past them
both. Inside, lights spun and strobed. Music played, a driving
techno drone with a bass beat so strong it vibrated up
through the floor and into his bones. Something intense
called to him. His body hurled toward the parquet floor, legs
pumping, arms swinging.

“Well, he sure dances like your average white boy,” the
man in the fatigues said.

“I think he’s kinda funky,” the girl said.

“Dance,” said Andy’s voice. His body throbbed and jerked,
a half-beat out of synch with the music but struggling to
catch up. Drops of sweat formed on his forehead. The back of
his hand rubbed at his cheeks and ended up damp.

Pounding came from an inside door.

Andy looked up and saw that the girl and the man in
fatigues had stacked all the canned food atop one of the
tables. The man in fatigues aimed his gun at the door.

“Who’s there?” he shouted.

“S’Earl,” the reply came.

Fatigues unbolted the lock. “Come on in, Earl. We’ve got
something to eat now besides stale peanuts and chips.”

Two new people entered the room — a skinny guy with wild
hair and glasses, followed by a harried-looking, motherly
woman.

“Who the hell’s that?” the skinny guy, Earl, asked.

“New boyfriend,” Fatigues said, jerking his thumb at the

girl.

“Asshole,” the girl said. Earl snickered, and the girl said,
“You’re both assholes.”

“Ohmygod!” the new woman cried. “I know him. That’s
Andy Quayle. He teaches — he taught — at the school with me.”

60 Charles Coleman Finlay

Andy’s hand shot into the air and waved. “Hi, Marsha,”
said Andy’s voice.

“Er, hi, Andy,” she said in return.

He continued to dance. Something inside him thirsted.
“He’s just, y’know, in shock or something,” the girl said. “I
mean, my God. Like, who isn’t? Y’know?”

“Well,” Marsha said, staring at Andy. She shrugged, and
dropped her voice. “He’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the
socket. I have no clue how he survived this long.”

“Sweet potatoes and green beans!” Earl whined. “Gimme
that can opener. Where’s the real food? Where’s the frozen
meatloaf?”

“Meat’s the problem,” the girl yelled at him. “Meat means
murder — from now on we’re all vegan!”

The man in the fatigues rolled his eyes.

“Aw, the hell with it,” Earl said, spooning the dull brown
mass into his mouth. “There’s two dozen out front in the trap.
We just checked.”

“Maybe it’s a trap for us,” Fatigues said, scowling. “If this
is all caused by that Chinese mind collective, the way I think,
then they’ll — ”

“You’re nuts!” Earl swallowed and wiped his mouth on his
sleeve. “It’s the silicon synapse transplants, the big brain bulk-
up gone bad. I told you people, I warned everybody against it,
because you can’t get smart for nothing. At least the neural
deterioration lets us overwhelm their senses, confuse them.”
All of them but the girl glanced over at Andy.

Marsha waved her hands. “No, that can’t be right. That
just doesn’t explain the feeding frenzies or the way it hap-
pened so fast or the zombie cats we’ve found — ”

“That cat did nothing but purr,” the girl said. “It was
harmless, and there was no reason for you guys to burn it!”
Earl sneered, but Fatigues said, “It could have been con-
tagious. Maybe that’s the vector that introduced the plague!”
“There’s no plague,” Earl growled with his mouth full.
“Has to be,” Marsha said. “It’s some bio-warfare thing
designed to provoke a simple stimulus-response reaction. Now
that most of the brains are deprived of the original defining
stimulus, they’re rewiring themselves.”

“Whoa,” the girl said. “You go, science lady.”

“Except for the fact that it doesn’t affect those of us smart
enough — ” Earl looked sideways at the girl “ — or dumb enough
not to go for the brain bulk-up in the first place.”

Fatigues snorted. “They could be alien parasites for all I
care.” He clutched a grenade on his belt. “They watch TV, we

Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle 6 1

blow them up, God sorts them out. As long as that works, I
like it. I like it a lot.”

The music played on the whole time they argued, thump-
thumpa-thump-thumpa-thump-thumpa-thump. . . . Andy
heard a faint, muffled, arrhythmic banging that threw off his
dancing.

“So, like, is there any hope for a cure?” the girl asked.

“If it starts evolving,” Marsha said, “maybe it’ll break down
into something where we can be safe. We already see some
evidence of that, with the — ”

Earl slammed his fist on the table. “You think you know
everything, but you don’t! There’s no cure, not until all those
stupid people are wiped out!”

“I say it’ll be over when we make it over,” Fatigues said,
shaking his gun. “So the sooner we get to work the better.”

“Whatever,” the girl said. She slumped in her chair. “I just
wish it would end so — ”

The outside door buckled and banged open. A dozen zom-
bies poured inside, heads turning from side to side. The last
one through the door carried a remote control at arm’s length
in front of him. The bald, pot-bellied man in the lead pointed
toward the girl.

“Burg-her. Eat burg-her.”

“Uh, uh,” said the other zombies. They surged forward.

“I don’t like this!” Fatigues screamed, kicking tables over.
“I don’t like this at all!”

Marsha dove for the other door, unlatching it and drag-
ging Fatigues behind her. His shotgun blasted, knocking a few
zombies off-balance and slowing their assault. Earl, rising
from the fallen table, went down in a tangle of arms as he tried
to follow them. He screamed, stabbing his spoon at their
faces. Fluid spattered into the air.

Andy danced.

A bottle with a flaming wick flew from behind the bar and
shattered on the pile. One of the zombies instantly became a
torch, sizzling and popping, filling the air with the thick
stench of burned flesh as he spun in circles, arms in the air.
The girl stood behind the bar. She threw another bottle, and
another. Zombies pulled the door open to pursue Marsha and
Fatigues, or flee the flames.

And the vibrations pounded up through the floor into his
legs, so Andy danced.

Sprinklers blossomed water, extinguishing the fires in a
spray of steam and smoke. Andy lifted his mouth and
swallowed as he danced, but his thirst didn’t go away. Over by

62

Charles Coleman Finlay

the bar, Baldy attacked the girl. She batted his hands away
with the bottles, wicks hanging wet and limp in the necks.

Conduits sparked on the wall; the lights flickered and
quit. The music shuddered, died.

“Aaaarggh!” screamed Andy’s voice.

He jumped forward, picked up a chair, and smashed it
into the last place he’d seen Baldy. He hit something hard —
the impact shivered up through his shoulders — that fell with
a thump onto the floor. Andy pounded it again and again, until
the chair broke.

A hand gripped Andy’s elbow and he spun.

“Come on!” the girl said.

She led him toward a light trickling in through the door.
He followed her up the steps to the alley. Out in the sunlight,
everything seemed blindingly bright. He squinted and looked
at the long shadows. Even the little convertible had one. On
the ground, in the shadow, beside pieces of a skull, he saw
keys. His hand reached out to grab the ring.

“What’re you doing?” the girl shouted. She waited halfway
down the alley.

“Nice car,” said Andy’s voice.

He climbed into the driver’s seat and shoved the keys into
the slot. He looked over his shoulder as the girl tossed the
baby into the little back seat. The baby sucked quietly on its
yellowed thumb.

“Didn’t want to forget your kid,” the girl said, “y’know,
even if — y’know, like ...”

She climbed over the door into the passenger seat as the
engine revved to life. Her hair was plastered to her head. Her
clothes hung tight to her skin. The sprinklers had washed
off the overpowering scent of patchouli and underneath the
lingering odor he smelled something else. Sweat. Skin.
Something danced in his belly, where that old and nearly for-
gotten hunger sat.

He shifted into gear, pulling out of the alley and driving
down the street.

She reached into her purse and held a cigarette to her
lips. It shook in her fingers. As she foraged through the bag,
he punched the dashboard lighter in. When it popped out, he
held it up for her. She sucked on the cigarette and exhaled a
little puff of clove-scented smoke.

He noticed the dimple in her chin. The tip of his tongue
would fit perfectly in that dimple. He leaned toward her.

“Uh, uh!”

“Hey! Keep your eyes on the road!”

Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle 63

Andy’s head snapped upright. He steered the car back
between the lines.

“You’re looking a little stiff there, teach.” She laughed, and
took another drag on her cigarette. “Like, you saved my life.
Twice. Thanks.” When he didn’t say anything, she said, “So
where do we go now?”

Andy stared at her cheek. It blushed pink like the western
sky above the highway. “Into the sunset.”

“Sounds good to me.” She exhaled a stream of smoke.
“Let’s do it.”

He jerked the steering wheel to cut across the boulevard,
accelerated through a yellow light, and zipped up the entrance
ramp. In the rearview mirror, he saw Andy’s mouth grinning
like a happy man.

Trouble

MARK MCLAUGHLIN

VMlma Website: Yeah, I was a Deathquaker. I suppose I still
am, but I really can’t call myself one, since Dandy Voorhees
isn’t around anymore.

The Deathquakers without Dandy? Unthinkable! That
would be like the Youthquakers from the sixties without Andy
Warhol. Everybody knows that Dandy modeled his every
movement, every utterance, every moment of his existence
after Andy Warhol. Andy was an artist and a genius, and so
was Dandy. But Dandy gave everything a dark twist — a Goth
sensibility — so he could take it one step beyond and call it his
own.

Andy had a hangout called The Factory, with everything
spray-painted silver. Dandy had The Funeral Parlor, with
everything draped in black velvet. Andy had his paintings of
Campbell’s Soup cans and his Brillo box sculptures. Dandy did
the same thing with formaldehyde bottles and clove cigarette
packs. Andy looked like a pathetic corpse — and Dandy. . . ?

Like I said, he had to take everything one step beyond.

Koko Fantastic: I was Dandy’s first friend in this town with-
out pity, make no mistake! I was actually at the bus station
when he arrived. But I wasn’t there to see Dandy. I didn’t even
know who he was. No one did.

No, I was arguing with my boyfriend at the time, whose
name I will not even allow to cross my lips, because he was
leaving town and he still owed me at least three or four thou-
sand dollars. I was just yelling and yelling at him, telling him
I was going to hunt him down like a dog, when out of the cor-
ner of my eye I saw this scrawny little white-haired man-child
with sunglasses, and skin three shades whiter than an onion.
He was wearing some kind of tattered black-velvet suit that
was falling apart at the seams.

I looked at that little piece of ghost-meat and said, “Freak,
what’s your story?”

He just pointed behind me and said, “Gee! That guy’s
getting away.”

I turned around and, sure enough, the bus was pulling
away from the curb. I just sank to the ground and started

Trouble 65

crying, and damned if that skinny- assed albino shrimp didn’t
sit himself down next to me and start crying, too.

“Oh, now don’t you start,” I said. “You’re so skinny, you’ll
leak out all your water and turn to dust. Why are you crying,
anyway? You don’t know me.”

“I can’t help it,” he said in that soft ghost-voice of this.
“Gee, you’re just so beautiful I can’t stand to see you so sad.
What’s your name?”

I told him my name. My real name, that is. He shook his
head. “That’s all wrong for you. Your name should be Koko
Fantastic. A beautiful lady should have a beautiful name.”
Well now, of course I know I’m beautiful. But sadly, most
folks don’t appreciate that fact. They think a woman over
three hundred pounds has just gotta be . . . shall we say, less
than pleasing to the eye. I thought little ghosty-boy was really
sweet — and very observant — so I told him he could stay at my
place for a few weeks. I took that name he gave me, and it
turned my life around. His stay turned from weeks into years,
but that was no problem, because by then, he was a force to
be reckoned with, and I was high and mighty among his
Chosen Ones — the Deathquakers.

Arabella Cream: He came to town with ten bucks and a suit-
case full of homemade Goth clothes and a headful of dreams
about Andy Warhol. I forget where he was from, but it was
some little ditchwater burg in the Midwest. Kansas? Iowa?
Nebraska? One of those really flat states.

I was managing the Saunders Gallery and living in a
crummy apartment building about six blocks away — a real
rat’s nest filled with crazy artists. But it was close to work and
I hate to drive, so it was fine for me at the time. Plus, I had a
little act going on at the coffee house across the street — per-
formance poetry every Wednesday night — so it was a really
convenient location. My neighbor across the hall was this
hugely fat Southern gal, a massage therapist who had these
totally impossible dreams of being a great actress. Dandy was
staying with her. She’d found him at the bus station and so I
guess she’d sort of adopted him. Like a stray kitten.

He started going around to all the ad agencies, trying to
do freelance work for them. Andy Warhol did that back at the
beginning of his career, you know. And like Warhol, he was as
pale as a ghost, with patchy white hair, and so eager, so sen-
sitive, so . . . unearthly. I had a couple agency friends at the
time, and we called him Andy Wannabe for a few weeks.
Dandy was into the whole Goth thing, but I guess that made

66

Mark McLaughlin

sense. If Warhol were alive today, he’d be loving that whole
lace-trimmed doom scene.

I saw Dandy pretty often, because after all, he lived right
across the hall. We’d talk every now and then. He couldn’t
hold a real conversation: He’d either just mumble a few words
or else ramble on about his latest obsession. He showed me
his drawings and paintings and photos. He wanted to buy
some silk-screening equipment so he could do pictures that
way — just like Warhol.

Eventually I let him do a show at the Saunders Gallery —
half out of pity and half because he really did have some tal-
ent. Eventually he started hanging out with a group of artist
types and he became their leader. Amazing, really, when you
consider how socially awkward he was. But he did have a
knack for finding people who could help him reach the next
stage — whatever that stage might be.

Xavier Y. Zerba: I met Dandy at the coffee shop across the
street from where he used to live. Goth men are usually so chic
in their own grim, counter-culture way, but Dandy just looked
ghoulish. But still, he had some definite magnetism, and I
found myself spending more and more time with him, listening
to him go on and on about all kinds of nonsense. He was con-
vinced that he was the reincarnation of Andy Warhol. He said
that living and dying as Warhol had given him unbelievable
insights, and that this time, he was going to tilt everything at
just the right angle, so that his work would live forever.

Back when he was Warhol, he said, he’d touched upon the
ultimate truth when he did his remakes of those old Dracula
and Frankenstein movies. The truth that lurks beyond life. He
just hadn’t lingered long enough on those themes — not long
enough to learn anything substantial.

You know, when you think about it, it really is odd that
a pop-culture guru like Warhol would ever have remade a
couple of creaky horror movies like that. The things Dandy
said gave the whole situation a perfectly logical rationale. I
found myself nodding whenever I listened to him.

His work started selling pretty well at the Saunders
Gallery. I hitched him up with a few other opportunities in the
city — I know everybody who’s anybody. If I don’t know them,
they aren’t worth knowing. I introduced him to politicians,
newspaper columnists, club owners — even the S&M cult- freaks
who run The Absinthe Martini. I was the one who introduced
him to Taffy Belasco. Crazy rich girl with too much time on her
hands. She had loads of old-money friends, all perfectly eager

Trouble

67

to throw cash at somebody if Taffy deigned to give that person
the nod. She funded quite a lot of Dandy’s projects — his silk-
screening projects, his art films. She even paid the rent at The
Funeral Parlor, before Dandy started making money hand
over fist.

Taffy Belasco: Dandy was simply, simply, simply divine. I
wasn’t attracted to him in any sort of physical way — but
really, that’s just as well. Sex would have ruined our relation-
ship. We had something better than sex. We had rapport.

He was like my daddy, my brother, sometimes even my
mother, all rolled up into one. People used to tell me, ‘Taffy,
he’s just using you for your money. He’s sucking on you like
a leech. Wake up and smell the coffee!” But I would just
laugh. For a crazy little man who looked like death, he made
me feel so alive! So I helped him out. I was the one who helped
him set up The Funeral Parlor. He was living with Koko
Fantastic, but I thought he needed some additional work-
space. Her place was just so small — but then, maybe it just
looked small in comparison to her. At The Funeral Parlor,
Dandy finally had enough room to really launch some fantas-
tic projects. A lot of his little movies were made there. I paid
the bills early on, and in Dandy’s defense, he did eventually
pay me back. With interest, which is something leeches never
do. Eventually I let him study the Crowley papers — though,
looking back, I suppose that might have been a mistake.

V\Alma Website: Dandy once told me, “I can’t be around com-
mon people. They make me nauseous.” So he picked his own
family of uncommon folks — the Deathquakers. He was our
pseudo-Daddy, and eventually Taffy became our pseudo-
Mommy. And The Funeral Parlor was our spooky treehouse.

Dandy and Taffy, Taffy and Dandy — the society columns
were all abuzz at the time. Who is this pale mystery man
squiring everyone’s favorite spoiled-little-rich-girl hither and
yon? I first met Dandy through Taffy. I was designing her web
site, and she introduced us at a party. He took one look at me
and said, “Those cheekbones! I’ve just got to put you in one of
my movies!” He’d started making art films. At that point, he’d
only made two or three. One of those early ones was called
Fish — they showed it at that party. It was just forty minutes
of Koko Fantastic chopping up dead fish. Every now and then
she’d stop to read their guts. I guess some people can read
fish-guts. Sounds like pretty boring reading, though. There
can’t be much of a plot.

68

Mark McLaughlin

Koko Fantastic: I was the star of Dandy’s first movie, Fish. I
didn’t even have to act. I just read entrails for him, since he’d
always been fascinated by the fact that I could do that — that
anyone could do that. My mama taught me how to do it, and
her mama taught her, and I suppose her mama taught her,
on down the line, all the way back to Eve.

That puny rich girl he used to hang out with, that Taffy,
she’s related to Aleister Crowley. You know who that is? Weird
old black-magic guy. Born 1875, died 1947. A member of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was Taffy’s great-
uncle or something like that. He designed a set of mystic tarot
cards once. Whenever Taffy couldn’t make up her mind, she’d
break out those cards and do a reading. One of those cards
showed a golden woman holding a giant snake — or maybe she
was wrestling with it, I couldn’t tell. And there was this big eye
shining golden light onto that snake. Yeah, I remember that
one. It was the Universe card.

Taffy used to let Dandy look at Crowley’s old papers — she
has a bunch of them tucked away in the library at her papa’s
mansion. I said to Dandy one day, “What do you want with
that kind of magic? It’s too evil. Too powerful. Don’t look at
that stuff any more.”

He said, “Ask the fish guts if it’s okay for me to look at
Crowley’s work. I’ll do a film of the reading. Gee! It’ll be mar-
velous! Just marvelous!”

Well, I’ve always wanted to be an actress, so I said, “Sure,”
even though I didn’t think people would be too interested in
watching me read fish entrails. But I did it, and I’ll tell you
this: The fish-guts never lie.

The guts told me that death would come walking, and that’s
just what happened.

Arabella Cream: Dandy started making those art films of his,
and before long, they were the talk of the town. Everybody
wanted to be in a Dandy Voorhees movie, just like everybody
wanted to buy a Dandy Voorhees painting or go to a Dandy
Voorhees party. The whole city was all wrapped up in him.

After he’d been making those movies for about four or five
years, I said to him one day, “Dandy, I’ve been good to you.
Why don’t you put me in one of your movies?”

He fixed his goofy stare on me and said, “Gee! What a
great idea! How about this? We’ll remake Macbeth, except we’ll
make it modern and interesting. You and Koko and Taffy can
be the witches in the big cauldron scene. Xavier can be
Macbeth. How about that?”

Trouble

69

I had to bite my tongue to stop from laughing. Hmmm,
apparently Shakespeare wasn’t interesting, but Dandy was
going to take care of that. Then he said, “You won’t have to
memorize any Shakespeare. Actors should never memorize
anything. They should always put the lines in their own
words. You know what might be fun? I’ll see if we can work in
the Chant of the All-Seeing Eye somehow.”

I told him, “Never heard of it.”

“No one has. But, gee! It’s really exciting!” he said. “It’s
something Crowley picked up during his travels. He found the
original inscription in the tomb of the Red Pharaoh. He was
going to publish a whole book about it, but he only ever got
around to writing a couple chapters — -Taffy has them up at her
house. Crowley realized you had to combine science and reli-
gion to attain the ultimate truth of the universe, and the
Chant of the All-Seeing Eye was the way to do it. The chant
reconfigures the brain so that it can see beyond good and evil.
And the best part is, we’ll be the first people since ancient
times to use it, since Crowley never got around to publishing
it.”

Something seemed wrong with what Dandy was saying.
“So you’re saying this Crowley guy never used this chant
thingy himself?”

Dandy nodded. “Yep.”

“Even though he’s the one who discovered it? Even though
he was writing a book about it?”

He nodded again. “Yep.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

Dandy just shrugged. “Gee, why should it? Maybe he
never got around to doing it. A lot of people are like that. They
mean to do stuff, but then they just forget.”

Dandy may have been an artistic genius, but, you know,
that doesn’t mean he was smart.

Xavier Y. Zerba: Dandy was going to make a movie called The
Legend of Macbeth and the All-Seeing Eye, and he asked me to
play the part of Macbeth. But as it turned out, I had to be out
of town on the weekend he was starting production. He was
disappointed that I wouldn’t change my plans for him, so he
said in a really bitchy voice, “Fine, I’ll play Macbeth myself.”

I was a little pissed off myself, since he was giving me so
much attitude, so I said, “While you’re at it, change the name.
Your movies aren’t long enough to have big titles like that.”
“Well, gee! What should I change it to?” he whined.

“Use something from the show.” I thought over what little

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Mark McLaughlin

I knew about Macbeth, and finally suggested, “Well, there’s a
line that says, ‘boil your oil, toil and trouble’ — or something
like that. Call it Toil and Trouble. Or maybe just Trouble .”

Dandy’s face lit up like a jack-o-lantern. “Gee! That’s a
great title! Thanks, Xavier. I’ll call it Trouble”

“Yeah,” I said. “You do that.”

Taffy Belasco: Well, you know I simply adored Dandy. But
Trouble certainly lived up to its name. I wasn’t too happy with
Dandy while he was making that picture. How was I to know
it would be his last?

The problem was, Dandy got it into his head to play
Macbeth himself, and he was terrible. I mean, he’d recruited
some pretty far-out characters to play in some of his films,
but he was about ten times worse than any of them. I tried to
help. I told him: “Dandy, I’m sure Macbeth never used the
word Gee.” But, of course, that advice went right over his
head, since he wanted all the actors to say the lines however
they pleased.

The sets were just hideous. Most of his movies had funky,
kitschy sets — usually rooms in The Funeral Parlor, and some-
times steam-rooms, alleys, fire escapes painted purple, you
name it. But for this one, he decided to build a cemetery out
of cardboard, like in the movie Plan 9 From Outer Space. He
built it in a big, smelly warehouse — the stink was awful, a
nauseating combination of burned plastic and ammonia.

Plus, Dandy was the only person running the camera,
which meant he had to rush in and out of the picture all the
time, to change the angle whenever somebody moved too
much. Ridiculous! He’d say, “It’ll get fixed in editing.” He kept
talking about this chant he was going to do as part of the
movie, but he said he’d be doing it last, when we weren’t
around. He wouldn’t explain why.

He really dragged out the witch-and-cauldron scene — that
probably takes up half of Trouble. I’ve never seen the whole
thing, so I wouldn’t know. The other parts of the movie didn’t
take that long to shoot, since the rest was just a super- abbre-
viated version of Macbeth with a few scenes of a homeless
woman doing some sort of spastic go-go dance. He saw some
weird old woman dancing outside of the warehouse, so he put
her in the movie as Ophelia. I didn’t have the heart to tell him
that Ophelia was from Hamlet.

So finally, when it came time for him to do the big chant
scene, he just sent all of us home. Just like that. He told
Arabella and me to take the homeless woman with us. He gave

Trouble

71

us twenty bucks and asked us to buy her dinner somewhere.
All the frustration I’d felt making that movie melted away as
soon as Dandy asked us to do that. That was so sweet of him.
So we bought that old lady a steak dinner at a nice little diner.
And while she was eating, she said, “That guy, he’s the gate.
He’s gonna open the gate.” She said that about five times.

Finally Arabella said, “He’s the gate and he’s gonna open
the gate? What does that mean? He’s gonna open himself?”

The old woman nodded and said, “Exactly.” As soon as
she finished eating, she got up, said, “See ya!” and walked out
of the restaurant. We never saw her again, which is probably
just as well.

WIlma Website: Dandy died filming the chant scene of Trouble.
And apparently he’d made some secret arrangements with
some people. The camera and sets were gone, but the body was
still in the warehouse. Two months later, the film premiered at
a Goth art gallery called The Absinthe Martini.

The body had been discovered by some guy who’d been
looking for old copper wire to sell. Dandy didn’t have any ID on
him — typical Dandy — but he had my business card in his
pocket. I’d given it to him the day before, since my phone num-
ber had changed. So the copper- wire guy called me on a cell
phone! I told him to call the police, too. Then I drove straight
down to the warehouse. It wasn’t that far — only twenty min-
utes away from my studio. I arrived ten minutes before the
police. The copper- wire guy was gone by then.

The body had turned an awful shade of sky blue. I identi-
fied it as Dandy’s, and answered a few questions about him
for the police — and right in the middle of the questioning, the
body scrambled to its feet in a jerky, puppetlike way, and
Dandy croaked out, “Gee!” in a sad, dry, raspy voice. His eyes
were shining with bright golden light. An officer stepped right
up to him, and Dandy seized him by the throat and actually
fired golden beams out of his eyes, burning two holes into the
officer’s face.

It was the damnedest thing.

Another officer started firing at him, so Dandy shot those
golden beams at him, too — and burned two spots as big as
quarters into the guy’s throat. He ran over and started chew-
ing on the second cop, who was very good looking. We’re talk-
ing Brad Pitt good looking.

Then Dandy slowly turned to stare at me, and started lick-
ing his lips. Licking his pale blue lips with a dark blue tongue.

So, of course, I turned and ran. I’m no idiot.

72

Mark McLaughlin

Koko Fantastic: The Absinthe Martini is run by a weird little
clique that’s into S&M, so none of us Deathquakers ever went
there, even though it was Goth. Xavier knew those folks, but
even he never went to their place. No sirree. But I guess
Dandy went there. They were the ones who ended up with
Trouble, so I suppose he had some kind of thing with them.
An agreement. An alliance. I don’t know what you’d call —
what they had. I’m sure they were the ones who took away the
sets for the movie after Dandy died. They left the body
because they knew what it was going to become.

Eventually the police figured out a way to load Dandy into
a truck and take his zombie ass away. That’s what he was,
you know — a zombie. And not your garden variety, me-want-
brains, Dawn of the Dead - style zombie. He was some kind of
freaky primal thing, cooked up out of that damned Aleister
Crowley magic.

Poor Dandy. Poor man-child.

Poor thing.

Arabella Cream: That chant, that’s what did it to him. But
you know, I don’t think it did what it was supposed to do.
That Dandy — he never could stick to a script.

But evidently his rendition of the chant was caught on
film. I can just see him, setting up the camera, getting every-
thing ready, then running in front of it to do his bit. Mr. Do-
It-Yourself. None of us Deathquakers went to the premiere of
Trouble — we never went to The Absinthe Martini and, besides,
we weren’t invited. But it’s just as well. The film turned every-
one in the audience into zombies. Which leads me to wonder
how the film was edited. . . ? Maybe different people took turns
editing different parts. Maybe it was edited out of sequence. Or
maybe zombies edited it. I don’t know.

You know, I’m really sick of art. Running the Saunders
Gallery was hard enough, having to deal with whiny diva
artists. But having to contend with art film zombies — that’s
just too much. One of these days I’m just going to move to
some small town, find me a hunky gas station attendant, and
settle down to a quiet, fat, frumpy life with a few brats and a
station wagon.

I’ll even start using my original first name again — Darla.

Xavier Y. Zerba: You know, I was supposed to go to the pre-
miere of Trouble. The gang at The Absinthe Martini even sent
me an invitation. They were a strange little group. Pale, tattooed
men who always wore leather. And that was management — you

Trouble

73

should’ve seen the bartenders. All of them had names like
Toad-Scar and Crow-Claw and Barbed-Wire Joe. They’d have
been the first to admit that they loved stirring up — trouble! I
guess that made the movie’s title especially apropos.

I always told the other Deathquakers I never went to The
Absinthe Martini, but yeah, sure I did ... all the time. Just
for fun. I took Dandy once, just for fun. I think he had more
fun than I realized.

But I wasn’t able to make it to the premiere because I was
sick — stomach flu, puking and diarrhea all night. I’ve been
pretty lucky. If I’d have played Macbeth in that movie, or gone
to that premiere, I’d be a zombie now.

There were probably about a couple hundred people at the
premiere — The Absinthe Martini can be standing room only on
a good night. Now all those folks are zombies, roaming the
streets day and night, blasting chunks out of people with their
eye rays. I hear some of them have managed to turn other
folks into zombies — not sure how, but I’m not sticking around
to find out.

Luck only lasts for so long, so I’m getting out while the
getting is good. I’ll be on the first plane taking off tomorrow
morning. I don’t even care where it’s going.

I’ve had a lot of fun in this city. Now I’ll have fun in
another city. Sans the living dead.

Taffy Belasco: Papa has connections, so this morning, I
asked him to find out what the authorities are doing to
Dandy’s zombie. He made a few calls, pulled a few strings —
Papa’s wonderful that way. He found out that Dandy is being
tested at some sort of institution. They’ve got him locked up
in a concrete room, and they’re running all sorts of tests on
him — which isn’t easy, since he can fire those eye beams. In
fact, Papa’s taking me to the institute next week. He said I can
watch Dandy on a monitor. Dandy on TV, at long last!
Yesterday he managed to turn one of the guards into a zom-
bie. He recited that chant to him. So Papa said he’ll have them
turn down the sound on the monitor while we’re watching
Dandy.

The police are having a terrible time hunting down all
those zombies. The horrid things don’t care about bullets at
all, and they can shoot that burning light out of their eyes.
They’re kind of like movie projectors, aren’t they? They shoot
out beams that make a lasting impression! It really was
naughty of Dandy to use that Crowley chant to make so much
mischief. So much trouble. Trouble begetting trouble. I wonder

74

Mark McLaughlin

if he really knew what he was doing? This whole affair stinks
of an experiment gone wrong.

But you know what’s the funny part of this whole mess?
Well, of course, the zombies attack anyone who attacks
them — that’s human nature, even if the human in question is
one of the living dead. But if they’re left to their own devices,
they’ll only attack and eat good-looking people. It isn’t what
you gnaw, it’s who you gnaw! Isn’t that a stitch? The media
has really picked up on that — especially since zombies have
already attacked two health spas and a beauty salon. So ugly
people and fatties have nothing to worry about. Ha, I guess
that means Koko Fantastic is safe!

The other night, the Channel 17 Action News gal, Sharia
Fontaine, was doing a report on the whole zombie scene from
the street when suddenly one of those creatures rounded the
comer — and marched right past her. Oh, but she was flabber-
gasted! She practically threw herself at it. Did everything but
stick her head in its mouth. But that zombie just wasn’t hav-
ing any of that, thank you very much! It was delightful! But
you know, I’ve always thought she should do something about
those teeth of hers. And those crow’s-feet! A little Botox
wouldn’t hurt.

It seems those awful creatures have a lot of Dandy in
them. Not his sweet side, which I must admit was pretty puny
most of the time, but certainly his discerning nature. So
maybe the meek will inherit the Earth after all, if these zom-
bies take over and the beautiful people are turned into fodder.

Of course I still have all the Crowley papers. I’ve checked,
and the chant is still there. Dandy didn’t steal it — he must
have just copied it. I bet he screwed it up. He probably left out
some words when he was writing it down. And knowing him,
he probably added some lines and said “Gee!” too many times
while reciting it for the movie.

I’m tempted, you know. I really am. Tempted to go into the
library, dig out those papers again, and recite that chant per-
fectly. Perfectly. Perfectly.

Just to see what happens. Or rather, what’s meant to
happen.

But not today.

I’m sure there will come a day when — horror of horrors! —
my beauty will start to fade. My curves will sag. My limbs will
ache, and my eyes will bag.

Maybe then.

Nake d Shall I R eturn

TOM PICCIRILLI

Decker found himself on campus without knowing how
he’d gotten back from the hospital.

His hand hurt like hell and he wondered what they’d done
to him — needles? Cauterization? Maybe not that bad. He
hoped he still had his thumb. But wait, it really hadn’t been
about him at all, now had it? There was something else. He
looked down to see himself clutching his fist so tightly that his
fingers had turned a bluish-purple.

It took a solid thirty seconds and all his willpower to force
his hand open again. Decker held a crushed ball of white tape.

That’s right, he thought, my mother is dead.

The slow, forced rhythm of his mom’s chest had become
pure torture, her body mechanically heaving as if in continu-
ous death throes, the machine in control. It had been a long
battle, but they didn’t know with what. Cancer? Poison?
Infection? The four dripping IVs of antibiotics looped around
the room, tangling together.

The heart monitor began to squeal as her pulse dipped
below the line of no return. They had told Decker that would
happen. The respirator continued with its hateful regularity,
IVs still pouring a flood of worthless medications into her. The
lights on the machinery flashed, an abrupt beeping growing
louder. Her pulse staggered on for another moment, fighting
for the last second of life. He would’ve screamed but was
afraid that, if he opened his mouth, nothing but unstoppable
laughter would’ve come out.

The screens flashed numbers that faltered and skipped,
her heart finally giving up as she flatlined. The respirator con-
tinued to force her to breathe even after she was gone. They
turned off the machines and left him in there alone to say his
final goodbyes.

With only a slight hesitancy, Decker had leaned over the
bed, smoothed his mother’s matted graying hair aside, and
kissed her brow, which was moist from the last of her sweat.

He murmured for a moment, saying words that had no
meaning, before he realized she was dead but staring at him —
blinking — trying to talk.

“Ma?”

76

Tom Piccirilli

She was unable to speak because the respirator was still
sealed over her mouth. He removed the tape and drew out the
tubes, and then, with an alarmingly clear and mellifluous
voice, she told him something he did not want to know.

He didn’t remember what it was, but realized it would come
to him, eventually.

+ 4 * 4 *

The funeral was well attended.

She had been a beloved professor for twenty-five years and
it looked like many of her students from the last two decades
had shown up. So had the dean of science and most of the
biology department. Decker’s professors stared at him as he
stood beside the casket; they touched his shoulder, muttered
condolences. He tried to recognize their faces but was unable
to differentiate one from another. These people barely held any
specific identities now, and he couldn’t decide if he enjoyed the
change or not. They moved like water and shadow around him.

Someone grabbed his wrist, as if in a gesture of care or
friendship, but Decker felt strong fingers pressing into his
pulse. Checking his heart rate.

They’re worried about me.

Perhaps it was true. But why?

+ 4 * 4 *

Music, light, and laughter spilled out of the house and
into the street. His roommate, Herbie, was throwing another
party. Herbie weighed in at about two hundred and twenty,
mostly muscle with just a jiggle of beer belly — surfer’s tan,
beatnik goatee that had come back into vogue, blond hair just
an inch out of a crewcut. He’d been a senior for three years,
thanks to a carefully orchestrated and constantly shifting
series of majors. The latest was Renaissance poetry but next
semester he planned to switch to chemical engineering out of
the appalling fear of actually graduating.

Herbie just didn’t give a damn yet and probably never
would. He used any occasion to get girls over, booze himself
into oblivion, push the macho valve wide and hold it open.
These kind of nights always ended in a couple of fights, some
overturned furniture, and busted glass. Without even know-
ing why, Herbie liked to piss off campus security. The house
was north of Main Street, officially off school property, but in
reality they were only fifty yards from the Science Building and
night classes were in session until ten. Herbie pushed because
he knew — had always known — he could get away with it thanks
to Decker. To Decker’s mom.

Naked Shall I Return

77

Now that she was gone, though, nobody was sure exactly
what might happen next. It didn’t slow the party down any.

This might just lead to somewhere new. Decker walked in,
grabbed a bottle of gin, and took three long gulps from it. The
heat quickly worked down his throat and into his chest, until
something inside felt like it had slid out between his ribs.
Faces whirled by at high speed, horse teeth at all angles,
people calling him by name, asking him question after ques-
tion as they pawed at his neck, his arms.

Swarming, they carried him along. The hard ridge of his
shoulder muscles tensed further. He felt buoyant, oblivious,
and ephemeral, but worried just the same. A strengthening
current ran through the house. Planting his feet, he fought
against its increased pull. A girl with a high-voltage smile
pressed her tits into him and he let out an absurd giggle
before backing up the staircase, step by step, and heading
toward his bedroom on the second floor.

Holding court, Herbie sat in the middle of the hall, sur-
rounded by five freshman. He was talking animatedly and
playing well to his audience. That kind of quicksilver chatter
had a way of hypnotizing the kids. He kept feeding them alco-
hol, god of the minute, eyeing every girl and making his final
choice on who he planned to hunt down into bed. This little
redhead in the summer dress, her pale knees flashing as she
sipped from her beer and answered a question he’d put to her.
The current was even stronger up here and Decker had to
lean back against the wall and brace himself. Herbie listened
thoughtfully and made a comment that broke the rest of them
up. You could almost pluck the energy out of the air. Herbie
drew magic from the crowd.

Tracy, Herbie’s last girlfriend, had already been kicked
loose. Decker had liked her a lot — shy, with an embarrassed
grin that always hit him in the right way, witty and just self-
effacing enough to show you she had a lot of confidence.
She’d only been around for a couple of months when Herbie
had come, pretending to be humble, with his hand out. He
needed money for an abortion; Decker had given him the three
hundred bucks, then watched through the blinds as Tracy
silently climbed into her Honda and pulled away from the curb
into angry traffic. Decker hadn’t seen her since, anywhere, but
he thought about her more than he probably should have.

Sometimes it happened like that.

The redhead leaned forward and whispered, smiling drunk-
enly, flashing a pierced tongue, and Herbie bent toward her
until their foreheads were touching. Plucking his chin, Herbie

78 Tom Piccirilli

cracked wise, which brought up a befuddled giggle from her
pink throat.

Decker slid by without a word and let the drag sweep him
into his room, flopped face down on his mattress.

The dead kid he’d been seeing the past few days peeked
out from beneath the bed again: pale with intensely dark cir-
cles beneath his eyes and around those dry blue lips, coarse
brown hair with a cowlick that would never flatten out. His
nostrils were crusted, teeth almost a glowing green. One small
hand appeared and the kid waved at Decker.

Decker waved back.

He laid on the bed and listened for some noise coming
from under him — malicious titters, threats, hisses promising
further horror — but the kid mostly kept quiet, murmuring to
himself on occasion. Decker slept.

T T T

In the morning, the little redhead made breakfast and
cleaned the place up some. She seemed equally excited and
mortified as she scurried around with rags and a sponge, bag-
ging trash and hauling it to the curb. Decker introduced
himself and she told him her name, which he couldn’t hold
onto. He asked her to repeat it, which she did, and again it
slithered away even while he tried to grab hold.

Herbie read the sports section and paused in his meal to
occasionally grunt at Decker or the girl. Her voice was so soft
that Decker thought she wasn’t responding until he looked up
and saw her lips moving. When he was finished eating, she
took his plate away and washed it, left everything in the drain
board, waited for Herbie to kiss her goodbye — he didn’t — and
flitted out the door to class.

“Nice girl,” Decker said.

Herbie had used up all his personality last night and
wouldn’t recover it for another day or two. “Yeah.”

“What happened to the last one?”

“Which?”

“Tracy, I think. I don’t know.”

“You almost sound judgmental.”

“Maybe I almost am.”

That got a laugh from both of them. Herbie shrugged and
cracked his neck, patted down his stomach and said, “Hell,
no — not you. That’s why this is the perfect set-up. You’re the
best roommate I’ve ever had. No gripes, no arguments, no
fighting. We ever have a fight?”

“No.”

Naked Shall I Return

79

“See? That’s friendship in action. Impeccability.” He
yawned, went to the fridge, and took a pull from a bottle of
beer. It made him gag but he went in for a second sip, then
poured the rest down the sink. “Good thing she took out the
garbage. I think we’ve got rats. They’re bold, too. Last night
one was scurrying around in my closet. You heard ’em yet?”

Decker told him, “I need to get to the lab.”

4 T 4

Warm noon winds swept down through the pines, wash-
ing the scents of car exhaust and ponderosa over him. He
used his mother’s keys and let himself through the locked
biology department wing and into her lab. They’d cleared out
her research, experiments, controls and trials, and cleaned
the desk of her computer and notebooks. Decker wasn’t wor-
ried; he’d find everything again.

Opening the blinds an inch, he looked out at people walk-
ing across the quad, all the jubilant activity and customary
sounds tugging at him. Something remained missing. He still
had trouble recognizing some faces. The dean — he thought it
must be the dean — stood on the sidewalk so stately and impos-
ing, an embodiment of such energy and force, that Decker
couldn’t even remember the man’s name anymore.

The breach in his memories hinged on some trauma —
perhaps the death of his mother, perhaps something else.
Decker started to tremble wildly before the window, agitated
but enraged, trying to ride out his frustrations as far removed
as he could be. The planes and angles of the dean’s features
drifted even while Decker watched, until the man was face-
less. It was so odd to see only a void left where the man’s eyes
should be, that black vortex drawing daylight itself into the
depths, until Decker nearly began to hyperventilate.

He shut the blinds. Sometimes the dean would talk to him
but Decker couldn’t hear anything, only a humming that filled
his mind and caused lapses. He’d ferret out the anguish later,
when he had more time.

Why didn’t they care that he still had the keys?

Jesus, his hand hurt. This time he didn’t have to look, but
simply loosened his grip on the ball of tape. Control could be
learned. We all must adapt.

Scanning the room he saw that Professor Mason had been
moved into Mom’s lab. He’d set up a few trials and tests that
appeared just nasty enough to be bio-warfare and used by the
military — bogus assortments of Nerve, Blood, Blister, and
Incapacitating agents, including cholinesterase inhibitors. The

80

Tom Piccirilli

schmuck didn’t think far enough ahead to bother keeping any
of the atropine and pralidoxime chloride antidotes on hand
though. Bad fake out. So what were they really hiding?

Decker opened two vials and poured their contents into
his palm: saline solution, plankton, some brine shrimp and
simple agar, a waxy mix of protein and hydrocarbons. Made
for a weak implication toward ecological attack, a cut-link in
the food chain. Would some assembly of generals in D.C. buy
Mason’s treatise on manipulation of benign microorganisms
genetically altered to produce toxins and pathogens?

Sure, why not?

Okay, Decker thought, let’s start with him and see where
it goes.

4 4 4

Mason stood about 5' 4", a gnat of a septuagenarian whose
high-pitched, whiny voice did a fair impression of incessant
buzzing. Decker had taken Mason’s algorithms for compu-
tational biology class in sophomore year. The class had focused
on RH-mapping as a Hidden-Markov Model, programming
algorithm for constructing phylogenetic trees from quartets,
and clone intersection matrices and interval graphs. General
study of the natural growth and spread of life.

The guy really didn’t know much. Maybe he was merely a
front for whatever was going on, a nonessential and expend-
able instrument.

When Mason walked into the office, clutching a cup of tea
in his tiny white fist, Decker was seated at the desk. He sat
with one heel on the edge of the bottom drawer, tilted back in
the chair the same way his mother always did. Campus noises
wafted in: bicycle wheels spinning, soft tramp of footsteps on
the quad sidewalks, and girlish laughter rising on the breeze.
He’d replaced the vials and sat as if inspecting them, thought-
ful, inquisitive, somebody really putting all the pieces together.

Mason said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“It might be dangerous.”

That was sort of a cute answer, with just a touch of threat
to it, or perhaps a warning. “For who?”

“All of us. Any of us.”

“Where are my mother’s notes?”

“I don’t know.”

Professor Mason’s lack of creativity had a certain genius to
it — you just couldn’t get a guy into a corner with answers like
that. “Are you working with the dean on your latest project?”

Naked Shall I Return 8 1

“Project?” Mason said, sipping the tea, really rolling it
around in his mouth. ‘The dean? No, not really.”

It almost made Decker smile. The power of stupid. Except
Mason wasn’t actually stupid, he simply projected dull.

“What the hell are you people up to?”

“Ask your mother,” Mason told him.

With a growl, Decker rose. He would’ve broken the bas-
tard’s jaw for the quip except, no matter how hard he tried, he
couldn’t make a fist.

4 4 4

Signs and portents ruled everyone’s lives. If you could
understand the symbols you could figure out the larger picture,
the sphere you had been placed into, the path you walked.

If you could understand the symbols.

Decker couldn’t be sure how important any of this was to
them. So far, it looked like not much. He had to make some
sort of play and see if they were willing to try to stop him.

It took only a couple of minutes to come up with something
natural enough that would still provide him with a chance to
learn what he needed to know. While Herbie sat in front of the
TV with a pizza box on his lap, watching a four million dollar
a year runner get tagged out at third, Decker handed him a
printed list and said, “Let’s throw another party.”

“Sure.” Herbie picked a drying piece of pepperoni off his
chest and perused the names. “The hell is this? Sending out
invitations?” He flipped through the three pages. “You want to
ask our professors? The dean? You’ve got the entire science
faculty here.”

“And graduate teaching assistants.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to prove a theory.”

Herbie had considered a biology major once and realized
the power a word like theory held over scientists. “What kind?”
“It’s sort of involved.”

“Military shit, right?”

Decker was genuinely surprised. “What makes you say
that?”

“Maybe I’m just paranoid.”

“Or not.”

“I mean, who the hell knows what they make in there. The
army relies on dweebs like Professor Mason to dream up ways
to slaughter nations nobody’s ever visited. Mason couldn’t
get laid in high school and he’s still pissed about it, thinking
up ways to kill all the chicks who laughed at his scrawny

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Tom Piccirilli

chest. Nerve gas, toxins. I bet that fucker has a hand in it all,
and plays with himself every time he gets a new batch of
plutonium.”

“You might be right.”

But that was the end of the rant. Taking a bite out of
another slice of pie, Herbie sort of deflated. “Hell, they’ll never
show up.”

“It’ll be nice if that’s the case, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

Herbie gave Decker the slow once-over, squinting, the
hinges of his jaw tightening as he ground up the cheese and
sauce and swallowed hard. “You’ve gotten really weird lately,
man.”

“Invite the little redhead, too.”

“Who?”

“The girl who made us breakfast a couple of days ago and
took out the trash.”

“Oh, her. Why?”

“Why not?”

“I never called her back.” Perhaps it made him feel bad, a
hint of chagrin crossing his face. “You actually gonna be
around for this one?”

“Long enough to see who shows up,” Decker said.

By now Herbie had started to like the idea, glancing
through the oil-spotted pages again. “I wonder how rowdy
these science fucks will get after a keg.”

•f T 4*

The evening of the party Decker sat at the top of the stairs
and made them all come to him.

One after another they ascended the steps and took his
hand, thanking him for the invitation. They swelled around
the living room and spoke to the other guests but not to each
other. The dean, without eyes, brought bean dip. Carstairs
had made a salad. Beyond them, the others offered their gifts
and set them on the counters and tables around the apart-
ment: Harrington, Devaul, Lowry, Wilson, Remford, Reece,
Connelly. He knew the names and knew the faces, but wasn’t
certain he was matching them up correctly. It didn’t matter,
for his purposes they were only parts of one entity. Mason
brought five pounds of shrimp and cocktail sauce in an ice-
filled bucket.

With five beers in him, Herbie was in a playful mood,
actually dancing a little and hugging just about everybody. He

Naked Shall I Return

83

eventually pounded up the steps and sat beside Decker so
that they were wedged tightly between the banister and the
wall. Ruminating aloud about his fears of possible graduation,
Herbie sprang up and returned several times. He commented
on the women he’d slept with and those that had so far
avoided his charms.

But his voice changed harshly, as if he’d been speared in
the guts, when he cried, “Jesus.”

“What?”

“That lady.” Herbie jutted his goatee, indicating the front
door. “I know that lady. She’s a doctor — but — ”

“Lisa McGivem,” Decker said. “She teaches experimental
microbial genetics and metabolic biochemistry.”

“No, man, she’s a doctor, I mean ... I took Tracy to her.
To have an abortion. She did the abortion, man.”

Without reason, Decker began to tremble again, the anger
coming on much too fast and strong. Somehow, he under-
stood that she was connected to the symbols that defined who
he was. God damn it, his hand hurt. The tape. What did the
tape mean?

“What are you saying?” Decker asked.

“What do you mean what am I saying? At the clinic, in
town. It was her. She did the operation.”

The rest of the night sped into a black blur of motion.
Herbie ate most of the shrimp, threw up, and passed out at
around midnight. After six shots of Jack Daniels, the redhead
had come out of her shell. She took off her top and ran through
the halls with nipples thick enough to break somebody’s rib. A
friend finally got her under control and put her to bed in
Herbie’s room while he dry heaved on the kitchen floor.

Decker sat up there and stared down, and they watched
him from below, silently.

T T T

Curtains billowing, almost swaying around the room, like
the skirt of his mother when he was a child. She walked him
around the yard because he was too sick to play with the other
children. Nauseous, fingers always quivering, the lethargy and
infirmity so hard to overcome.

A couple of hours before dawn, the dead kid tugged at
Decker’s ankle. By the spatters of moonlight Decker watched
the boy crouching at the foot of the bed, now pulling lightly at
the sheets. Another figure hunkered there, as well — a dead lit-
tle girl, maybe three or four years old at most. Her blond hair
lay silver threaded in the dimness, but he could see she was

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Tom Piccirilli

smiling. She crept forward, bent over him, and placed her
cheek against his knee. The iciness of it was searing but also
comforting, like the cold compresses his mother once used to
swab away his fevers.

“Hello,” Decker said.

“Hi,” she answered.

“Who are you?”

A sweet smile, showing that she had all her teeth. “I’m
your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“Uh huh,” she sang. “Yeah you do, lots. Yuh huh, and lots
of brothers, too.”

The dead boy let out a soft chuckle of acknowledgment.

“Take me home with you,” Decker said.

“This is our home. You’re our home.”

“Show me where you were before you came here to stay
under my bed.”

She cocked her head at him and pursed her lips, thinking
it over. She laid her cheek against his leg again and nodded.
“Okay.”

My brothers and sisters.

They each stood and took one of his hands and led him
into the corridor and down the stairs. They walked past
Herbie, still unconscious and curled next to the oven. The boy
bent and stroked Herbie’s hair, and whispered in his ear.

Decker remembered what his mother had said to him,
after she was already lying there, dead, in the hospital bed:
Take care of your brothers and sisters.

T T T

They walked across the street to the science building.
Every door of the biology department was open now, even the
ones that Decker had previously needed his mother’s keys to
unlock. So he was expected. Good. Maybe it would make
things easier for once. They swept farther and farther into the
bowels of the building, until at last he didn’t recognize his
surroundings anymore. He’d spent six years of his life here
and had stood inside this place a thousand times before, but
only at this moment did he understand how ignorant he’d
always been.

Of biology.

Of his own mother.

The kids soon ushered him into a factory of rotting flesh.

The machinery around them beeped and pinged and
hummed, more alive than any of the expecting women in their

Naked Shall I Return

85

beds, readied to give birth. His professors walked up and
down the aisles with mechanical efficiency, wearing light blue
scrubs and rubber-soled slippers. Their faces switched from
one body to another, the ebony whirlpools of their empty eye
sockets still pulling at him. No one spoke and Decker knew
why — the ward was a tomb.

He counted fifty pregnant corpses before he gave up,
unable to handle the overwhelming image before him. His
knees weakened and he nearly toppled over. Dead women
with lifeless gazes, mouths drooping a little, some of them
chuckling softly. Decker turned to see blackening wrists
strapped to the rails of hospital beds, most of the corpses with
their legs spread and affixed in gleaming stirrups. The same
kind of tangled IVs that had coiled around his own dying
mother encompassed the ward like webbing.

No respirators this time. No respirators because they
didn’t breathe. Maybe that’s why he’d held onto the tape for
so long, because it proved his mother had once been alive,
before this current phase of responsibility and permanence.

She was there along with the rest of them, with distended
belly wobbling, roiling, and stewing, stuffed full. She stared
blindly at him and he stared blindly back. He’d always
believed life to be a bloody proceeding — red and wet and san-
guine, loud, full of laughter and weeping. But they’d washed
the bloated women down, cleaned the fetuses — rendering
them cold, naked, and fresh — then replaced them with ease
into the surgically widened birth canals. His teachers were
busily re-implanting the fetuses taken by Lisa McGivern at
the abortion clinic.

And what the dead boy — Decker’s brother — had said to
Herbie when they walked by him curled up and passed out
next to the oven — yes, now it came into focus and made sense.
The kid had said, “Daddy .”

If you could understand the symbols, you could figure out
the larger picture, the sphere you had been placed into, the
path you walked.

If you could understand the symbols.

So the boy had eventually come home after Herbie and
Tracy had gone for the abortion. He knew his home. He knew
his father.

Mason zipped up beside Decker and stood there almost
buzzing, carrying files and notes that he thrust forward. He
quivered with impatience and expectation. “We’re going to die
as a race — ”

“Shut the fuck up.”

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Tom Piccirilli

“ — but this ensures that well live on even after we're
extinct. As a neoteric species.”

Decker couldn’t help himself. His vision grew too bright at
the edges and he swooned for a moment, had to hold himself
up by reaching out and grabbing onto one of the bed railings.
A corpse woman tugged at her bonds and her fingers fluttered
against his own, but he didn’t draw away. Both of them had
the same bluish-purple tint to their skin. “You crazy bastard.”
“It was your mother’s idea.”

“I don’t believe that,” Decker said, but of course he realized
it was true. ‘This isn’t — ” He couldn’t even say the word.

‘This is the highest form of science. She developed the
serum. The entire process you see, actually, including much of
the technology whereby the dead could live on in this capacity.
She saw the potential and extrapolated the full usage of termi-
nations. The walking dead, this new breed, will carry on when
the earth is uninhabitable for the rest of us.”

“Terminations?”

Buzzing louder, an insanely trapped insect battering
wings against Decker’s chest, Mason asked, almost begging
now, “Don’t you understand? Don’t you? The world is becom-
ing increasingly toxic to us. The impurities, contamination,
pollution, radiation, and poisons are annihilating us. We can’t
survive much longer under such virulent conditions. Recent
pathogens include streptococcus S23F, a newly discovered
naturally occurring strain of — ”

“Pneumonia,” Decker said. “Resistant to at least six of the
most commonly used antibiotics.”

“Yes. And the flourishing awareness of new biological epi-
demics and pestilence prompted the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to publish The Journal of Emerging
Infectious Diseases. Ingenuously occurring biological hazards
that threaten humanity are increasing and growing more
varied every day. Our latest projections have us completely
dying out within the next six decades.”

Algorithms for computational biology. Decker took his
mother’s files and checked the pages, running some quick
statistics. Mason still didn’t know shit. Mom had worked in a
frenzy for a reason. She gave them thirty- five years, tops,
before mankind died out.

“My mother — ”

“She — they — can only perform in this capacity for six
months or so after primary expiration, before final stage organ
failure and total cessation of body functions.”

So what was his mom now — merely necrotic tissue? “What

Naked Shall I Return 87

of the flora, the fauna? What happens when every other living
creature dies off?”

“That’s all superfluous. The new breed can survive con-
sume, ingest, and subsist solely on themselves.”

Decker tried to think it through. Humans were het-
erotrophs, their diet included organic molecules of carbohy-
drates, proteins, nucleic acids, vitamins, minerals, and other
macro- and micronutrients. His mother’s serum was heavy on
polymers of monomer sub-units: starch, proteins, triglycerides,
amino acids, nucleotides.

She had been making humans more nourishing and
digestible to themselves.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Decker groaned, clutching his belly,
fighting not to hunch over and fall to his knees. “You’re cre-
ating a vacuous biosphere that devours itself.”

“Out of necessity. No food chain, just . . . food.”

Not birth at all. No. No. Parasitic symbiosis. “And the ges-
tation period for the . . . the new breed?”

The words brought a sorrowful smile to Mason’s lips.
“Very brief. Twenty- two, twenty- three days.”

“The same as rats,” Decker said.

The machinery continued to bleat while the women panted.
Mason looked at him with pity, compassion, and condolence
until his gaze was so heavy on Decker that he nearly buckled.
Mason took Decker’s pulse, and not finding any said, “You
were the prototype, our exemplar specimen. She was healthy
when she was re-implanted back then, injecting herself with
only small doses of the serum. It’s not nearly as efficient as
when the host is already exanimate.” And grinning now, his
little insectoid face humming with glee, he added, “It took you
four months to come fully to term. Your brother and sister
rats don’t fight this existence the way you did. They’re eager
for it.”

+ T T

And so he sat at his mother’s side again.

Control could be learned. We all must adapt.

Signs and portents ruled everyone’s deaths. If you could
understand the symbols, you could figure out the larger pic-
ture, the necro- sphere you had been placed into, the dark
path you stumbled upon.

Her hands clenched spasmodically, reaching for some-
thing to hold, and he placed the ball of tape into her right palm
and folded her fingers over until she crushed it in her fist.

The other dead kids — his younger brother and sister — and

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Tom Piccirilli

all the many others now moving from all the shadowy corners
of the room, giggling, climbed up and sat on his lap and gath-
ered around him, and together they waited for the demise and
birth of a new world emerging.

Fa lling Into Naug ht

DOUGLAS W. CLARK

After a final check of the snares, Darius “Mac” McKenzie
retreated to the center of the clearing and began belting out
“John Henry,” or at least as much of it as he remembered. He
knew he couldn’t carry a tune, but what he lacked in ability
he made up for in volume. While he sang, he held his sawed-
off shotgun ready, just in case. Soon, he was rewarded by the
sound of something crashing through the kudzu-choked
maple and oak of the Carolina forest.

The disheveled figure of a lurch in ragged clothes burst
into the clearing and blundered toward Mac. It shambled with
a lurch’s characteristic gait, arms outstretched, and teeth
clacking. Mac had the shotgun hallway to his shoulder before
one of the snares caught the creature up short, a loop of rope
taut around its ankle. The lurch continued mindlessly trying
to get at Mac, unaware of the impediment. Dirt caked the
maggot-infested features of what might once have been a
youngish man, although age and even sex were hard to deter-
mine given the creature’s state of decay. Mac lowered the gun.
Rage toward the thing boiled up in him, but he forced his
emotions down and edged close to the lurch, wrinkling his
nose against the smell. He flipped a noose over its head and
shoulders, jerked the rope down to the creature’s waist, and
pulled the noose tight, pinning the thing’s arms to its sides.
Several more quick loops with the rope around the lurch’s
midsection and legs ensured that it wouldn’t be able to
escape. Then Mac duct-taped the creature’s mouth shut as
protection against its potentially deadly bite.

The hog-tied lurch was ready to be loaded into the pick-
up. Instead, however, Mac straddled the thing’s midsection,
hate rising up inside him. He saw in the lurch’s face an exag-
geration of Anne’s features when she, like so many other
dead, had risen from their graves and spread like a pestilence
among the living. She, too, had returned with faltering steps
and jaws snapping, but having been more recently dead, she’d
still retained the appearance of the woman he remembered,
the loving wife and caring mother. Mac, keeping the kitchen
table between them, had tried to reason with her, unwilling to
believe she was no longer human. Then four-year-old Brian

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Douglas W. Clark

had entered the room and, with an excited shout, had run
toward his mother. Mac called to him, but it was too late.
Before Mac could rescue the boy, the thing that had been
Anne took several bites out of his legs and arms.

In the end, Mac had been forced to decapitate Anne to stop
her rampage. The next day, he had done the same to Brian,
who during the night had become one of the hungry dead as
well.

Now, Mac kneeled over the supine lurch he had captured
and smashed a fist into the creature’s jaw. Soon he was hit-
ting the thing over and over, unable to stop, until finally bone
crunched under his fist. He struggled for self-control, his
breathing ragged and shallow. The lurch’s jaw twisted unnat-
urally to one side beneath the duct tape. Mac forced himself
to step away from the creature. Taylor wouldn’t pay as much
if merchandise intended for the bloater pen arrived already
damaged. Mac half dragged, half carried the lurch to the
truck, where he deposited it without ceremony in the pickup
bed. Returning to the clearing, he reset the snare and began
singing again, his voice still taut with anger.

Within a couple of hours, Mac had captured another
lurch — an elderly woman, judging by her tattered dress and
filthy white hair. For an old woman, she put up quite a strug-
gle, lashing out so furiously it was difficult to pin her arms to
her sides, but at last Mac had her trussed and stowed in the
pickup bed as well. He would have liked to capture a couple
more lurches before setting off for the bloater pen, but dark-
ness would be coming on soon and Mac didn’t want to
attempt this work in the dark. There was too much at stake,
too many ways to screw up if one of the creatures managed to
get past the snares.

He drove slowly on the way back to Taylor’s, not because
he cared whether the two lurches got banged around in the
pickup bed, but out of concern for the truck’s suspension.
Lengthening shadows made the numerous ruts hard to see.
Besides, Mac’s anger had been somewhat appeased by the
thought of what lay in store for the two dead things once they
arrived at the bloater pen. That fate almost made up for not
being able to cut their heads off immediately.

Behind him rose reddish brown dust, stirred by the truck’s
passage. It settled thickly over the string of drying heads that
dangled above the pickup bed, testimonials to Mac’s profes-
sion. Occasionally, he passed houses set back among clusters
of ancient elms. Most of the houses were deserted now. The
boarded up windows and reinforced doors gave the structures

Falling Into Naught 91

a besieged appearance. Mac ignored them. They were evidence
of civilization’s decline, and it didn’t pay to dwell on the way
things had been in the before time. Before the dead started to
walk. Before they came back to feed.

So it was that he was rolling slowly by one of the houses
set back from the road when he noticed a child, hardly more
than a toddler, meandering unsteadily on its infant legs in the
front yard. The tow-headed boy reminded Mac of a younger
Brian. Mac slowed, wondering who would allow a child to play
unsupervised in a world where lurches roamed free. Then he
noticed the front door of the house standing open.

Without thinking, he swung the truck onto the gravel drive
and slammed on the brakes. He grabbed the shotgun off the
seat and leaped from the vehicle, crossing the yard at a run.
He had just reached the child when, as if to confirm his appre-
hension, the figure of a woman pitched through the doorway
toward the boy, moving with the familiar gait of a lurch. It was
like Anne’s attack on Brian all over again. Mac swept the child
up in his left arm even as he raised the shotgun with the right,
aiming for the woman’s head. Other than decapitation, the
only way to stop a lurch was to blow its brains out.

“Put him down!” the woman shrieked, still staggering
toward him.

Mac wavered, confused by the prospect of a talking lurch.
Before he could make sense of the situation, sharp needles of
pain shot through his left arm. He looked down to see the
child sinking its baby teeth into his flesh. With horror, he
yanked the child free and spun it around, staring into its eyes.

They were flat and milky. The child was dead. But not
incapacitated. Its jaws snapped like an angry turtle’s in an
effort to get at Mac again. He flung the creature to the ground
in disgust. Before it could get to its feet, the woman had hob-
bled up to it. While Mac stood frozen with uncharacteristic
dread, she dropped awkwardly to her knees and began hew-
ing off the thing’s head with a butcher knife, careful to avoid
its frantic teeth.

It was hard, grisly work, as Mac knew from experience,
and the sight of her struggle brought him back to himself. He
hurried to the truck, grabbed his machete, and returned to
the woman. “Here,” he said, “let me.” The woman, numb with
grief, allowed herself to be eased aside, and Mac finished sev-
ering the child’s head with several well-placed blows. Once the
job was done, the woman pushed herself clumsily to her feet.
Only then did Mac notice her leg braces — the reason her step
had resembled a lurch’s.

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Douglas W. Clark

“I thought you were . . . well, you know. One of them,” he
said.

It took a moment for his words to register, since her atten-
tion remained riveted on the dead child. Finally, she wrenched
her gaze away and grimaced, glancing at the braces. “I had
polio as a girl.” Her voice came out flat, stripped of emotion.

Mac didn’t know what to say, so he jerked his head to
indicate the decapitated thing on the ground. “Was it yours?”

“He, not it,” she corrected. Tears trickled down her face,
but she didn’t let herself give way to crying. “He was a human
being and had a name. Zachary. And, yes, he was my son.”
She sighed with a weariness that sounded bone deep.

Mac bristled at the idea that the thing on the ground, this
obscene creature that had bitten and possibly infected him,
could ever be considered human. But he remembered what it
had been like having to cut off Anne’s and Brian’s heads, and
resisted saying anything. At the memory, raw anguish rose in
him like bile, overwhelming even his fear of the bite he’d
received. Automatically, he forced all emotion down again,
concentrating instead on the woman’s words.

“He’s been very sick,” she went on, “cholera probably. I
thought fresh air might do him some good, so I brought him
outside. When I noticed he was . . . that he had . . . when I
realized what had happened, I hurried inside for a knife.” She
wiped the blade clean of gore and turned to Mac. “You just
had the bad luck to arrive before I got back outside.” She
sucked in a deep breath with a shudder that Mac recognized
as the effort required to push back a grief that threatened to
consume her. “But you’re hurt. We’d better see to that arm.”

“I’ve had worse,” he growled, although he let her lead him
into the house. Even a minor bite from a lurch could be a
chancy thing. In the kitchen, she had him pull back his torn
sleeve. The shirt had protected him against the worst of the
damage, although a couple of small puncture marks showed
as blue swellings against his skin. “It’s not too bad,” Mac
insisted, fighting a cold knot of alarm that formed in his belly
at the sight.

The woman merely grunted and tried to wash the wound
with soap and water at the sink. Mac shook her off. “That won’t
do any good,” he said. He unsheathed the hunting knife at his
belt and made a couple of quick, deep incisions over each
puncture, then sucked out the poison as if treating a snake
bite. The woman, meanwhile, brought a bottle of brandy from
a cabinet. ‘This is going to burn,” she said and poured the con-
tents over the bite.

Falling Into Naught 93

Mac drew in his breath with a hiss, but held his arm
steady. He doubted the brandy would help, and hated to see
good liquor go to waste. But the woman clearly needed to do
something. After she had bathed the wound, she tied a strip
of cloth around Mac’s arm as a bandage and let him pull down
his sleeve.

“Thanks,” he said.

She nodded. “I’m Helen.”

“Mac.” He stuck out his hand and she shook it clumsily;
like many women, she was apparently unused to the practice.
Mac jerked his head toward the front door. “About your . . .
boy out there.” He gritted his teeth at the word, hating the
thought of granting that much humanity to such a creature,
but forced himself to continue. He owed the woman some-
thing for her kindness. “You got a shovel?” he asked. “Least I
can do is help bury him.”

She rummaged up a snow shovel from the garage. Mac
cocked an eyebrow at it, knowing he’d be in for some hard dig-
ging with such a tool, even if the dirt were soft. But he said
nothing. If digging a grave with the broad, flat shovel would be
difficult for him, he figured it would be nearly impossible for
her, hampered as she was by braces. They went out back to a
garden and Helen pointed at the ground. “Here,” she whis-
pered, weariness again seeping into her voice. Her shoulders
slumped. “I’ve always been particularly fond of this spot. It
looks quite pretty in the spring, when the daffodils come up.”

There was already one grave in the garden, next to the
spot Helen had indicated for Zachary. She must have realized
Mac was looking at it, for she said softly, “That was Michelle.
She was my other child.”

“Did you have to dig her grave yourself?” Mac asked, won-
dering how she had managed.

She shook her head. “My husband, Eric, buried her. That
was a while ago, in the beginning. Just after those . . . things
started preying on everyone. I guess Eric just couldn’t handle
it, because he left right after Michelle was in the ground and
I haven’t seen him since.”

Mac said nothing, and started digging. He was solidly
muscled, yet he sweated at his task, laboring for each blade
full of dirt. Inwardly, he was glad the creature was so small; he
wouldn’t have to scrape out as large a hole as an older lurch
would have required. As he dug, he had the awful sensation
that his efforts were causing the pain in his injured arm to
spread, but assured himself this was just groundless anxiety.
Finally he had a grave deep enough to protect the corpse

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Douglas W. Clark

against scavengers. Helen, meanwhile, had carried the child’s
body and head around from the front, moving awkwardly
under the burden. She laid the pieces in the hole and stood
back. Mac hesitated, feeling he should say something to com-
memorate the death of this woman’s son. But he couldn’t
bring himself to offer healing words over a lurch’s corpse. And
anyway, the dead had grown legion in recent times under the
combined onslaught of lurches and disease. It was pointless
to mark the passing of any one individual.

When the dirt was mounded over the tiny grave, Mac
tamped down the soft earth with the back of the blade, and
returned the shovel to the garage. He tried to ignore the pain
in his injured arm, assuring himself it hadn’t gotten any
worse. But awareness of it gnawed at his insides.

“You going to be all right out here alone?” he asked Helen
before stepping out the front door.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” she said, sounding resolute.

“You could come into town.”

She shrugged. “This is my home. My children are buried
here.”

Mac nodded stiffly, determined not to argue her choice of
words. Besides, she wouldn’t necessarily be any better off in
town. “Civilization” offered the illusion of security while in fact
opening a person up to predation by both the living and the
dead.

It was now dark outside. Over Mac’s objections, Helen got
out a flashlight and walked him to his truck, as if he were the
one in greater danger. He couldn’t help but admire her
courage and her willingness to do what had to be done. Not
every woman could chop off the head of a lurch if the need
arose, especially if the lurch had once been her son.

They reached the truck and Mac opened the door. Helen
started to turn back to the house, but the beam of her flash-
light picked out the heads hanging above the pickup bed.
“You’re a bounty hunter,” she said, the words lacking inflec-
tion. Just then, one of the lurches in back shifted, banging
against the side of the truck. “What was that?” Helen hissed.

Mac felt a sudden reluctance for Helen to see the lurches
he carried. He moved to block her view, but it was too late.
The flashlight played over the pair of hog- tied corpses, their
eyes staring back dully in the light.

“What’s this?” Helen asked, though her voice made it plain
she knew. Knew, and disapproved. “You’re taking these to that
awful place down the road.”

Mac’s face flamed hot, but he refused to answer.

Falling Into Naught 95

“Would you have taken Zachary there too if you’d had the
chance?” Helen demanded. “Would he have ended up just
another source of sadistic entertainment?”

“It’s hardly sadistic,” he snapped. “These creatures are
neither human nor alive.”

Helen stared, then spun and stalked back to the house,
her movements made ungainly by her braces.

Furious, Mac climbed into the truck and slammed the
door. This time he drove too fast, heedless of the ruts or the
damage each bounce caused the lurches in back. He didn’t
care whether he broke anything on them or not. That was
Taylor’s problem, not his. All the while, Mac wonder why he
cared about the opinion of some woman he’d just met.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t shake the image of Helen working
with the butcher knife at the grisly task of removing Zachary’s
head, all the while the dead boy trying to bite her. He respected
her for that, even though he tried hard not to.

He reached the two -lane asphalt and mashed the acceler-
ator to the floor, flying along the darkened highway. Soon, he
neared the floodlights that provided security for the bloater
pen, set up on the outskirts of the little town of Morganville.
Lights didn’t deter the lurches, but they made the creatures
easier to see if they ventured into the compound. Mac slewed
the truck off the road and bounced across the field to the
lighted area. Gravel and dirt sprayed as he hit the brakes. He
was out of the truck almost before it had stopped rolling. Even
at a distance from the circular, corral-style pen, the odor of
decaying flesh filled the air. Ignoring the smell, Mac strode to
the rear of the truck and dragged the lurches over the lowered
tailgate, dumping them on the ground. They didn’t look to
have anything broken, except for the jaw he had smashed on
the first dead thing. For good measure, he kicked each corpse
a time or two, venting a little of his rage.

Taylor — a small, pot-bellied, balding man who looked too
harmless for the occupation he had chosen — came out while
Mac was unloading the lurches. He grinned when he saw the
two creatures. “Damn, but I can sure use these,” he said.
“Business has been brisk.” He motioned for a couple of his men
to take the creatures over to the holding cages. Then he ges-
tured at Mac’s shirtsleeve. “Looks like one of ’em got too close.”
Mac pulled back his sleeve, revealing the bandage, and
grimaced. “Yeah, but it wasn’t one of these. A little one, a tod-
dler, hardly into its first teeth.”

Taylor glanced around the empty truck bed. “Well, where
is it? One that young would bring premium rates in the pen.”

96

Douglas W. Clark

“It isn’t here. It’s been destroyed and buried.”

Taylor spun back to stare at Mac. “What? You destroyed
a perfectly good lurch? One I could have used in the pen?
Why’d you do a stupid thing like that?”

“I didn’t. Its mother did.”

“Why didn’t you talk some sense into her first? I mean,
those things aren’t human, after all. Not anymore.”

Mac looked down at the smaller man, confused emotions
coiling in his stomach. “For chrissake, Taylor, she was its
mother. Have some compassion.”

Taylor shrugged. “Compassion’s an expensive commodity.
And misplaced. I’m here to make a profit, and a lurch like that
could have brought me a hefty return. People find the little
ones all the more frightening because they look so innocent.
Makes ’em hate the little monsters all the more. They’ll pay
top dollar for that.”

Mac glanced over at the holding cages where the two new
lurches were being untied and confined. Several other dead
things in various stages of “ripening” already waited in the
steel-mesh enclosures. Suddenly Mac felt exhausted. He shook
his head to dispel a fuzziness around the periphery of his
vision.

“You okay?” Taylor asked, sounding unusually solicitous.

“Yeah. Just tired, that’s all.” Mac started toward the trail-
ers where Taylor and the rest of the crew slept. “See you in the
morning.”

“Sure,” Taylor replied. “Sure thing. Sleep well.”

Mac nodded and kept going. By the time he reached his
bunk, he was stumbling with fatigue. He fell into bed without
bothering to take his clothes off. While he waited for sleep, he
attempted to work an increasing stiffness from his injured
arm. His body felt alternately hot and cold, and he sweated
equally through either extreme. Finally, he drifted into an
uneasy sleep.

Sometime after midnight, he was awakened by hands
grabbing his arms and legs. He struggled, his movements
seeming to lack coordination. The overhead light came on and
he saw four men holding him while Taylor watched to one
side.

“What the hell — ?” Mac demanded. His words came out
unusually slurred, even for one suddenly roused from sleep.

“Just a precaution,” Taylor said. He nodded to the men and
they carried Mac from the trailer and across the compound to
an empty holding cage. The whole time, Mac thrashed about
futilely. Inside the cage, Taylor struck Mac an enervating blow

Falling Into Naught 97

with a pistol butt on the back of the head. As Mac slid again
into unconsciousness, he was dimly aware of the men closing
the cage door, leaving him behind.

He awoke, still groggy, the next morning, squeezing his
eyes tight against the assault of direct sunlight. His head
pounded. Worse, the bandage on his arm had become excru-
ciatingly tight, attesting to increased swelling, and the arm
itself burned as if Helen’s brandy were coursing through the
veins around the wound. Mac didn’t have to look at the flesh
to know that it was putrefying. The pain assured him of that.

He was dying. That damned lurch’s bite was proving fatal
after all.

Panic gripped him. His heart thudded violently against his
ribs and his stomach threatened to climb into his throat. The
only thing left to him, now that Anne and Brian were gone,
was his humanity; if he died from the lurch’s bite, he’d lose
even that. He’d become one of the living dead, just like all the
others. Just like Anne and Brian. Tears of fury leaked through
his tightly clenched eyes. “Not that,” he whispered. “Please,
anything but that. ...”

A crowd’s roar made him open his eyes, and he blinked
rapidly to clear them. He was lying on his back in the cage,
staring up into open sky through wire mesh. In the cages on
either side, lurches being held until they were sufficiently
bloated with decay snuffled and flailed against the shared
wire walls. They were trying to get to him. But their efforts
weren’t as vigorous as usual when they sensed live meat, as if
the creatures were already aware that he was dying.

Aware that he was becoming one of them.

Mac dragged himself weakly upright, using the mesh of
the cage door for support, and looked for Taylor. Across the
compound, business at the bloater pen had already begun for
the day. Inside the pen, three or four lurches shambled about,
trying to get at the live meats spaced around the inside of a
ring. The lurches’ mouths were still duct-taped shut to protect
the living “players” from the creatures’ bite; fortunately, the
lurches were too stupid to notice or remove the tape.

The live meat were rubes from town, mostly men,
although Mac noticed some women and even a few children,
the latter prompted from behind by adults who were presum-
ably parents. Each live meat wielded a rented baseball bat,
which he or she swung whenever a lurch stumbled within
range. Mac watched one boy, who looked to be about eight,
nod eagerly as the man behind him showed him how to han-
dle the heavy bat. The boy swung with enthusiasm if not skill,

98

Douglas W. Clark

somehow managing to connect with the elbow of an approach-
ing lurch. Mac heard the sickening crunch of shattering bone.
The boy beamed at the cheering brought on by his success.
The lurch, spun part way around by the blow, blundered off
after another possible victim, seemingly unaware that its left
arm now dangled uselessly at its side.

But the real payoff of the game came whenever one of the
live meats managed to burst a lurch’s abdomen, so distended
by the bacteria still active in its gut that each dead thing
resembled a grotesque parody of a late-term pregnancy. Then
the air would fill with spattered putrescence, like favors
spewed forth by some deranged pinata, and the live meats,
laughing even as they gagged on the stench, would flee the
ring, abandoning it to the lurches who continued as if noth-
ing had happened. Even the lurch with the burst abdomen
would slip around in its swollen, eviscerated entrails as it
tried to get at the fleeing players. These victories for the living
were not easily come by, however, for the lurches’ bellies
proved remarkably resilient, the bats usually rebounding off
them with a dull thud.

It was, as Taylor called it, quite a freak show.

Through it all, spotters armed with shotguns lounged
around the outside of the ring to make sure no lurches acci-
dentally reached any of the batters. Other live meats also
waited outside the pen, eager for their turn in the ring. The
would-be players brought canned foods, ammunition, jugs of
gasoline, medical supplies — anything that could be bartered
for a chance to get back at the creatures that had brought
their world to its knees.

Watching Taylor’s “freak show,” Mac for the first time rec-
ognized the horror of it all. The poison in his system had
brought him to the edge of a void. A few more hours, perhaps
even as long as a day or two, and he would topple in, the fall
stripping away eveiy thing that made him human. It was
futile, but he resisted the void’s awful pull. Not so with the
locals who came to the pen to play. They seemed eager to
shuck off the things that made them more than live meat, dif-
ferent from the lurches. They were plummeting into nothing-
ness, but willingly.

“Taylor,” Mac called. The name came out as a gasp. He
took a faltering breath and tried again. “Taylor!”

At the bloater pen, the small figure of Taylor separated
itself from where he had been bartering with new arrivals and
sauntered over to the holding cages. “Morning, sunshine,” he
said.

Falling Into Naught 99

Mac rattled the cage door; it had been secured with a loop
of chain and a padlock. ‘Taylor, what the hell are you doing?
Let me out of here.”

Taylor shook his head, turned, and spat. “Can’t do that.”

A chill swept Mac, though whether from illness or Taylor’s
words, he couldn’t be sure. “What are you doing?” he repeated
in a whisper.

“Mac, you were a good bounty hunter and you brought in
lots of lurches from the field. I appreciate that. Now it looks
like your days of bagging that kind of game are over. But I fig-
ure you can still supply me with one last lurch.”

“Honestly, it’s not that bad a wound,” Mac lied, grimacing
as he flexed his swollen arm. “Just a scratch, really. The thing
barely broke the skin, and I sucked the poison out. Hell, the
mother even washed the wound with brandy. I’ll be fine.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Taylor replied.
“I’ll just keep you in a holding cage for now, and we’ll see what
happens.” He shrugged. “If you live, I let you go. You die, you
end up in the pen, like all the others.” Taylor made an abrupt
gesture that took in the corral behind him, where the crowd
continued with its sport. The sight, he knew, explained every-
thing. Then he headed back to the pen.

“Taylor!”

The little man never bothered to look back.

Mac threw himself against the cage door, determined to
make it yield to his will. And though it flexed under his
weight, the steel pipes that formed its frame wouldn’t bend
enough to let him wedge between the door and the side of the
cage. He exhausted his already weakened body with the effort
and finally had to stop; he crouched in the cage’s center and
considered his situation. To either side, the lurches in the
adjacent cages were showing less and less interest in reach-
ing him, although one or two still flailed at the mesh with
desultory intent.

Mac ignored his fellow prisoners, drove away the fear with
dreams of vengeance. His hatred for Taylor burned with a
fierceness he’d never felt before, not even when confronting
the lurches. Mac let those dark thoughts enfold him, shield
him from all the horror around him. When he escaped — and
he didn’t dare doubt that he could — he would take Taylor
hostage, dragging him back to the woods where Mac had cap-
tured the last two lurches. In the clearing, Mac would stake
the bastard out on the ground, then climb a tree from which
he could summon more of the dead things. He would watch
them devour Taylor while the little man screamed for a mercy

100 Douglas W. Clark

he himself hadn’t shown anyone or anything in a long, long
time.

After a while, Mac realized the fury of these thoughts was
draining what little energy he had. He needed to conserve his
strength. He had to get free, to put the thoughts into action.
For the next few hours, he crouched in the middle of the cage,
his mind focused only on fighting off the sickness that washed
over him in ever-increasing waves.

Around midday, another bounty hunter, a wiry man Mac
knew only as Crete, pulled up outside the cages, returning in
Mac’s truck with the morning’s catch. Mac gritted his teeth at
the sight of another hunter climbing from his pickup.
Apparently, the others already felt free to claim his possessions.

On sudden inspiration, Mac began to blunder about
inside of his cage, windmilling his arms and shambling like
one of the lurches. Taylor, who came over to inspect the new
arrivals, stopped at Mac’s cage to watch. After a moment, he
grinned. “So, it looks like you’ll be fodder for the bloater pen
after all.” He turned to Crete. “We’ll put the new ones in with
Mac. He won’t be so difficult to handle now.”

With a nasty laugh, Taylor picked up a long pole with a
quick-release noose at the end, such as dogcatchers had once
used with potentially rabid animals, then unlocked the cage.
He opened the door an inch or two, using his body to block it.
“Let’s introduce you to your new roommates, shall we?” he
said, sounding jovial as he slid the noose end of the pole into
the cage and directed it toward Mac’s head.

Mac flung himself at the cage door, forcing it open. The
impact threw Taylor to the ground. Before the little man could
react, Mac was on top of him, grabbing the pole from his
hands. “Let’s not,” he snarled, thrusting the pole between
Crete’s legs and wrenching it savagely to one side. The other
hunter toppled.

Working against an unaccustomed clumsiness, Mac
unsnapped the holster on Taylor’s belt and relieved him of his
pistol. By the time Crete regained his feet, Mac had the muz-
zle pressed against his erstwhile employer’s skull. Crete
backed away, hands in the air. Mac motioned Taylor toward
the pickup, which still sat idling. “Shall we?” he said, mimick-
ing the smaller man’s jaunty tone. “And do it quietly. If any of
the others tiy to come to your rescue, I’ll blow your brains out.”

Mac was shaking by the time he got Taylor into the truck.
The barrel of the gun jiggled erratically, although Mac managed
to keep it aimed in his hostage’s general direction. Taylor
watched him dispassionately, obviously awaiting his chance to

Falling Into Naught 1 0 1

jump Mac and turn the tables. Mac let out a ragged breath
and wiped sweat from his forehead. He was cold, so very cold.
Driving one-handed, the gun trained on Taylor, he slewed the
truck around and hightailed it across the field to the high-
way. Halfway there, 12-gauge pellets peppered the rear of the
pickup, although Mac was too far from the bloater pen by
then for the shot to have much effect. In the mirror, he saw
Taylor’s men running for their own trucks to give chase.

Mac didn’t stay on the highway long enough for them to
catch up. Instead, he immediately swung onto a side road,
and from there steered a tortuous route through backwoods.
After a while, with no sign of pursuit, he risked pulling over
long enough to tie up his hostage. “Can’t have you trying to
get the drop on me,” Mac said through chattering teeth. “After
all, I’m clearly not at my best right now.”

“So what do you intend to do with me?” Taylor asked, a
quaver betraying the forced calm of his voice.

“Oh, have I ever got plans for you,” Mac said, recalling the
images that had fed his imagination earlier. He shoved the
gun into his belt and resumed driving, needing both hands
now to hold the wheel steady. He checked the rearview mirror,
but saw no one. For the moment, he had lost Taylor’s men.
They would pick up his trail eventually, but he had bought a
little time.

But not much. He shivered again from a renewed onset of
chills. Unfortunately, Taylor’s men might not be what he most
needed to fear right now. The void was close. Its call strong.

When he came to a dirt road he recognized from the previ-
ous day, he turned onto it. He wiped his forehead again with
his sleeve and tried to remember how far it was to the clearing,
to the place where he would have his revenge.

“Christ, Mac, have some compassion,” Taylor whined.

“Oh, like you showed me?”

“You’re dead already. You know that. I mean, look at you.
It’s just a matter of time.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I should have my first live meal
close at hand, for when the time comes,” Mac said sourly. He
glanced over in time to catch the look of terror that washed
over Taylor’s face. “Lurches get pretty hungry pretty fast.”

They drove in silence after that. Taylor kept glancing at
Mac, his eyes so wide with fear that the whites stood out. Mac
wanted to savor the other man’s terror, but his own horror at
what was happening to him kept him from taking any real
satisfaction in Taylor’s misery. At least, he told himself that
was the reason for the misgivings gnawing at him.

102

Douglas W. Clark

Up ahead, he saw a house he recognized, and slowed as
he drew near. It was Helen’s house. Mac gritted his teeth as
he considered what she would say if she knew what he was
doing now. If she thought supplying lurches to the bloater pen
was bad, how much worse would she consider Mac’s present
plan? Some part of him shouted that he should not care, that
Taylor deserved what was about to happen.

Nevertheless, Mac braked to a stop. For long moments, he
sat there, letting the engine idle. The urge to drive on, to go
deeper into the woods and let happen the things he had
planned, was strong. He understood the attraction now,
understood the relief he would feel if he only allowed himself to
fall.

But then Mac saw what he was doing. He wasn’t even a
lurch yet, and he was ready to murder another man. Anne, at
least, had been dead first. How had he dared think the less of
her for what she had done to Brian? She had not gone over
willingly, while he was in a position to choose his fate and still
he was ready to fall. . . .

Oh, Anne, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.

“Mac?” Taylor was blubbering now. “What are you doing?”

His mind made up, Mac lunged across the cab and
yanked open the glove box. His spare hunting knife was still
stowed inside. Mac’s hand shook so badly he had to make two
attempts before he managed to grab the knife. He slid it from
its sheath and leaned toward Taylor. The little man flinched,
shifting as far away as the cab interior allowed. “Mac?”

“Hold still!” Steadying the knife with both hands, Mac cut
the rope holding Taylor. “Get — out.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me — get out! Quick, before I — change my —
mind.”

Whimpering, Taylor jerked the door open and practically
fell to the ground in his hurry to get away. Mac watched in the
mirror as the little man rushed headlong down the road, only
pausing long enough to glance over his shoulder to see if Mac
was in pursuit.

Mac waited until Taylor disappeared around a bend, then
put the truck in reverse. He gunned it, backing up as far as
Helen’s house and onto her drive. He tried a couple of times
to kill the engine, but couldn’t make his hands work well
enough to turn the key. Finally he gave up and left it running.
He opened his door with difficulty, then slid from the cab. He
fumbled under the seat for his machete. It had to be there. It
was all that could offer him the hope of redemption now.

Falling Into Naught 1 03

Eventually, he found it and stumbled toward Helen’s door. At
first, there was no answer to his knock. He tried again,
pounding as hard as he could, though the results sounded
faint even to his ears. At last, he heard Helen’s voice on the
other side, muffled by the heavy door. “Who is it?”

“Mac,” he gasped. “From yesterday.”

She didn’t respond at first, then, “Okay.” Bolts slid back
and she opened the door just far enough to peer at him.
“What?” Then her eyes widened as she took in his state. The
door swung all the way open. “My God, Mac, what’s happened
to you?”

“You know — what’s happening,” he said falteringly. He
leaned against the doorframe to keep from falling, and
extended the machete to her. “Please. I don’t have the right —
to ask it, but you know — what needs — to be done. Now, while
there’s still — time.”

She looked at him, holding his gaze. He felt her judgment
of him shifting as something like pity crept into her expres-
sion. Slowly, pity turned into compassion, and then into
respect. “All right,” she said at last. Without ever averting her
eyes, she reached to take the machete.

“Thank you,” Mac sighed. And as he said them, those two
words seemed to contain everything it meant to be human.

Sitti ng With the Dead

SHANE STEWART

It’s not until he hears the padlock seal itself that he
notices that everyone is gone. The noise startles him, pulling
him from a brief slumber as he sits in the old folding chair. He
looks around, checks his environment. There’s a table by the
far wall. Sealed double doors behind him. A stack of folding
chairs to the left. And the coffin in front of him.

He stands slowly, stretching the tiredness out of his joints
before he turns toward the doors. He tries the handles first,
finds them securely locked. He pushes the doors a few times,
throwing his weight against them. They refuse to move.
Satisfied, he circles the room, checking the windows. It’s
painfully hot, even though the sun went down a little while
ago. The windows are open, with a screen on each one to keep
out the bugs and let the breeze in. Beyond the screen, thick
iron bars prevent escape.

He glances at the coffin only briefly, doesn’t even stop to
survey the occupant. He simply crosses to the table. There’s a
thermos, heavy and metallic, with a single coffee-stained cup.
Next to the thermos there’s a slender black box and a short-
handled steel mallet. Next to that, a snub-nosed .38.

He picks up the revolver, checks it out once, and then
slides it into his jacket pocket. If he has to go for a gun, he’s
not sure what he’ll grab for — the .38 or the 10 mm under his
shoulder. But since the funeral director didn’t know about the
automatic he left the .38, just in case. You never know how
these things will turn out, after all.

Still, he muses, it’s good to have a backup.

He fingers the box briefly before grabbing the mallet. He
doesn’t want to open it, not yet. There’s too much temptation
to just get it all over with, and he doesn’t want to let her down,
just in case. Instead, he turns back toward the chair and drags
it over to the table. He cracks open the thermos and pours
thick black coffee into the cup. Sipping it makes him wince.

Never figured out what they put in the coffee around here,
he thinks. But they wouldn’t dare serve this at Starbucks.

He glances again at the coffin, but still refuses to walk over
there. Instead, he pulls a deck of cards from his pocket. He
leans back in the chair, props his feet on the table, and begins

105

Sitting With the Dead

shuffling. It doesn’t take long before he starts bringing ran-
dom cards to the top of the deck, quietly muttering the name
of the card before he flips it over. Now and then he fans the
cards, spreads them, cuts them, all the while keeping track of
which card is where in the deck.

“The three of hearts.”

The voice startles him. He glances outside reflexively and
calmly notes how dark it’s become, before looking at the coffin.

She’s sitting up, smiling at him pleasantly. Her thin white
hair hovers like a cloud around her head. “I pick the three of
hearts,” she says.

He smiles, then cuts the deck with one hand. He taps the
top of the deck for flourish and peels the card away. He holds
it up, face toward his audience. “What do you see?” he asks.
The wrinkled face smiles. “You did it again, Pumpkin.”

He smiles thinly, puts the cards away. “Hello, Gram.”

For a moment he thinks he sees light in the old, dead eyes
staring at him. “I must look just awful,” she says.

He stands up and stretches, then smiles at her. “You don’t
look too bad, all things considered.”

“You mean,” she says slowly, “considering that I’m dead
and all.”

He nods. The funeral director told him that it was impo-
lite to remind the risen that they’re dead. He’s never been very
polite, not since he left home at least, but he doesn’t want to
remind himself of her death either. Looking at her, the first
thing he sees is her eyes. The pupils have spread, pushing all
the color out of them. Big, black, dead eyes. He’s suddenly
very aware of the guns. The .38 pulls his jacket to the right,
while the 10 mm brushes lightly against his side.

They stare at each other for several minutes before she
glances around the room. “I’ve never seen Juniper’s parlor so
empty. I’m used to seeing at least a few people in here.”

“Only one person gets to sit in here with you,” he says.
“The rest of the family is either at home or out in the main
hall.”

“I know. The old ways are the best, after all.”

He shuffles, looks down at his feet.

“Nervous, Pumpkin?”

“No,” he says. “Just ... I don’t know.”

“Impatient, maybe?”

“No,” he lies.

“They don’t do this much anymore, do they? Not here in
the holler, like we do. Not much call for folks to sit with the
dead all night anymore. It’s a shame really.”

106

Shane Stewart

He stands motionless, resisting the urge to end this with
a bullet. He still doesn’t know which gun he’d go for first. He
kicks at the floorboards. “I thought the floor was concrete in
here?”

“It used to be,” his zombie Gram says. “But there was a
mudslide long about — I suppose it was six years ago now.
Took some of the support right out from under the floor. The
slab cracked in half and brought part of the funeral home
down with it. Old Man Juniper had it cleared out, and then
rebuilt it to how it is today. Managed to keep the same doors
for the viewing room here though.” She waves one hand at the
thick double doors. “Those doors have been on this parlor
since old Thomas W. Juniper first opened it back in 1853.
Wouldn’t be right, Eustace says, if they weren’t here. And
Eustace was the first person put to rest in his newly rebuilt
parlor.”

She looks at him, sees him staring at the floor. “I’m sorry,
Pumpkin, I’m rambling again. Is something on your mind?”

“I was just thinking . . . did Eustace sit up?”

Her smile disappears. “Wouldn’t really matter if he did.
That no good Phillip went and hired someone to sit up with
him. That weren’t right, but that’s just my opinion.”

He laughs a little. “You’ve always been full of opinions,
Gram.”

“Maybe I have, but still ...”

He looks up at her, tensing. “Gram?”

Her dead black eyes turn on him, and for a moment he
considers grabbing the gun and shooting her in the head.
Just like an off switch, he always tells himself. Just at range.

But her eyes suddenly shift, and she looks away. “I — I’m
sorry, Pumpkin. I just — for a moment — I was just real . . .
hungry for a second there.” A faint smile returns to her
undead lips. “I’m all right now.”

“You sure?” he says. He still wants to draw a gun.

“I’m sure.”

He stares at her for a moment before he lets himself relax.
“What was I saying, Pumpkin?”

“You were talking about your opinions, Gram.”

“Oh. Oh, yes. I remember now. All those new ways to pre-
pare the dead folk — they just aren’t right. You remember
Kendall Powell? He died when you were eleven, and his wife
sent him off to be embalmed. Poor man sat up that night, and
there was nothing left in there. His whole mind was gone. Tore
out of here and started killing anything he could get his hands
on. Ripped up three of our pigs before your grandfather, God

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Sitting With the Dead

rest his soul, put the poor man down with his 12 -gauge. There
wasn’t enough of poor Kendall’s head left for a decent viewing
after that. They had to lay a picture on top of his neck for the
viewing. And that one boy, Billy Gray, what fell out of that tree
when you were in high school? You remember him, don’t you?
They flushed him with water ’cause that other mortician came
to town to try and run the Juniper’s out of business, and Billy
done sat up and killed poor Bobby Mitchell and stuffed him in
his coffin. Then he went and just started killing and eating
folks. You remember him, don’t you Pumpkin?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Billy was the first zombie I ever
shot.”

“It ain’t natural to go and mess with the dead like that.
Nothing good comes from it.”

“Is that why you wanted it done the old way? Because you
didn’t want to chance coming back like that?”

“Well, yes, that’s — ”

“You could have opted for cremation.”

The silence surprises him, and he looks up from the floor
to see her staring at him. Her mouth has gone slack, and her
eyes are wide and dark. He starts to reach for a gun — only
vaguely aware that he was reaching into his jacket — when she
speaks again.

“Cremation! Never! My brother Barnaby died not three
weeks after you left home, and he had them cremate him.
They put him in that coffin, and they wheeled him into the
fire, and the minute he started to burn, he began to pound on
the coffin something fierce. He wailed and screamed and
hollered and kicked and beat on that pine box the entire time
he was burning. Then the box came apart, and he started
crawling for the furnace door, and he beat on that and wailed
until he couldn’t wail no more. No, sir. I may not know what
is waiting for us when we go, but I know one thing: Barnaby
met the beyond screaming in terror. That is no way for some-
one to go.”

“So you prefer this? You prefer nailing?”

“I prefer anything,” she says, “that gives me the chance to
talk to my family one last time.”

“I see.”

“Do you remember Julie Fisher, that girl you were always
sweet on?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“She died last year. That Isaacs boy — what was his name,
Winfred? Whipple?”

“Winter, Gram. Patrick Winter Isaacs.”

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Shane Stewart

“Yes, that’s it. She started living with him after you left the
holler. Never married him. He got her pregnant, is why, but no
one thinks she had a choice in the matter.”

He listens to the silence for a second. “Gram?”

“What? I’m sorry, Pumpkin. I was just ... so hungry. . . .”
“You were talking about Julie, Gram. Julie and Winter.”

“I was? Oh, yes. Anyway, she died last year. Winter beat
her to death. He got tossed in jail, and that’s the last I heard
of him. I suppose he’s still in there, maybe. If he ever gets out,
her father is liable to shoot the little so-and-so.”

He grinds his teeth back and forth. “Gram,” he says finally,
“you’re rambling.”

“No, I’m not. I know exactly why I brought Julie up, young
man.”

“Why is that?”

“She asked me to be her nailer. I was her second choice,
you should know.”

“Who was her first?”

“You.”

His heart stops, but only for a second. “Me? Why would
she want me to — ?”

“Because you left. Because you said you’d come back.
Because she’d been hoping that you would come back. And
because she wanted to tell you that she loved you before she
died.”

He falls back, leans against the wall, and stands there,
silent, for several minutes. “And when no one could find me,
they came to you. ...”

“Yes. And she wanted me to tell you that she loves you,
and that she’s waiting for you.”

He looks down, fingers the revolver through the fabric of
his coat. It wouldn’t take much to end all of this, he thinks.

“She lingered for a while, hoping you’d make it home. I — I
had to shoot her, with Juniper’s little revolver, late the follow-
ing morning.”

“I’m sorry, Gram.”

“So am I. That was when I decided I wanted you to be my
nailer. Partly because I had to pass on Julie’s message, and
partly because — well, it’s been so long. What’s happened to you,
Lyle?”

“Nothing, really,” he says. He turns away from her and
looks to the floor. “Just a couple of runs of bad luck, is all.”
He glances over at her. She just sits there, staring at him
with those black eyes. Silence for more than fif teen seconds, he
thinks, and she’s gone. Gram will be gone, and all that will be

Sitting With the Dead 1 09

left is me, the gun, and a starving machine. One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.

At thirteen Mississippi, she speaks. “I’m waiting.”

He mbs his eyes before he looks at her. “It all started going
wrong in school. I lost my job, and tuition was due. I needed
money fast, so I went to the casino. I walked up to the black-
jack table with $37 in my pocket. I walked away with a little
over $800. All because I’m good with cards.”

He fiddles with the deck in his pocket. He tries to look
away again, but he can’t stop looking into those dead eyes. I
used to be able to avoid talking to her, he thinks. Once upon a
time I could keep secrets from Gram.

After a moment he decides it doesn’t matter. The dead tell
no secrets. Neither did — does — Gram. . . .

“I paid my tuition, then went looking for a new job. But I
couldn’t find one, or I’d get one and not be able to keep it.
Classes started getting tough, and I thought if I had an easy
source of income, I could study more. So I went back to the
casino. I got escorted out by security that night, although
they let me keep the $300 I’d won. I started hitting the other
casinos for cash. Pretty soon I was banned from all of them.

“So, once again I’m looking for a job. I end up at this ware-
house, on the late shift. I’m up all night loading trucks, and
in the morning, I’m sleeping in class — if I even made it to
class. My grades are suffering, and I’m thinking it can’t get
much worse.” He smiles thinly. “Was I ever wrong.”

“What happened?”

“There were these homeless guys that came by the ware-
house on Tuesday nights. The foreman would put them to
work, give them some money the next day. One morning last
January, all four of them come in, and they’re dead. One of
them froze to death the week before, and he had bitten his
friends and killed them before he could stop himself. They got
the foreman, then they got Sam and Adam. That left just me
and Johnny.

“We made our way to the foreman’s office. Johnny played
baseball growing up, so he picked up a two-by-four on the
way. He was swinging it around while I dug through the office.
I found a long-barrel .22 pistol in the filing cabinet, and some
bullets. That’s when they found us. . . .”

“How many did you shoot, Lyle?”

“Three. Johnny got one with the board. Then the other
three got hold of him. I ... I couldn’t load the gun fast enough.”
He looks away from her. “I put a bullet in Johnny next.
Then Sam, then Adam. There wasn’t enough of the foreman

no

Shane Stewart

left to get back up, but I shot his corpse anyway. The police
arrived not long after. They asked me questions, I answered
them. When it was over, this guy walks up. Says he has a new
job for me.”

“I’ve heard,” she says, “that sometimes folks die in the
cities and no one notices before they rise up. And with no one
to help them along, they can’t get away from that hunger. And
then you get packs of hungry dead folk running around.”

He nods.

“I’ve heard that some people get paid to hunt them down.”
He reaches under his jacket and pulls out the automatic.
“They issue us these. We get a bounty for each zombie we
drop. We get the pistol and a sack and a big knife. We shoot
them, chop off their heads, and bring them in. Then we go
around and collect the rest of the bodies. We can also be hired
to take someone’s place when they have a relative who wants
to be dealt with in the traditional way.”

“So you make a living off the dead now.”

He nods. “Sometimes I get a few odd jobs here and there.
Usually just to make things meet.”

“I’ve heard bad things about people in your line of work.”
“Some of the squads pad their quotas, supposedly, with
homeless people that aren’t dead. Others are supposed to hire
themselves out as reasonably priced hit men.”

“You don’t do that.”

“No, I don’t,” he says. “But sometimes I wonder if I would,
given the chance.”

“If you have to shoot me,” she asks calmly, “which gun will
you use?”

“I — ” He looks at the floor for a moment, then up at her. “I
don’t know.”

Several minutes pass without a sound.

“Do you have my nail?”

He looks up at her quickly. “It’s on the table.”

“Bring it here. I’d like to have a look at it, while I still can.”
He retrieves the slim black box and walks over toward the
coffin. He stops and looks at her. Her eyes are black and
sparkling, and her smile has some faint, sinister bend to it.
“Gram?”

“Hmm? What?”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m tired, dear. And — well, hungry, too.”

He looks at her for a moment. Then he reaches into the
box and pulls out the nail.

It’s long, although he can’t quite tell how long. Little more

Ill

Sitting With the Dead

than a foot, he’d guess. Fifteen inches, maybe. The head is
wide, and the point is broad, like an arrowhead. He knows the
clinical aspect of the nail, its purpose. The broad point cuts at
the brain and, if inserted properly, will allow the risen to fade
away and move on. And if the blow isn’t precise enough, the
nail still serves a purpose — holding the risen down in their
coffins, where they’ll stay, until rot finally claims them. Some
of his associates on the squad purposefully nail people down
wrong, then cut the spinal cord so the unfortunate can’t move
or make any noise. They’re supposed to finish the risen off
with a bullet through the temple. Most of them consider it a
waste of ammunition.

Gram looks at the nail with a mixture of — what, exactly?
He has a hard time reading the dead black pits her eyes have
become. If he takes away the eyes, the look on her wrinkled
face is calm, almost gentle. Is that admiration? he wonders.
Appreciation? There’s supposed to be some sort of greater sig-
nificance to the nail, but he forgets what.

Finally, she speaks: “It’s a good nail.”

He nods.

“Have you ever — ?”

“No,” he says. “This is my first time.”

She smiles. “Thank you for agreeing to be my nailer, Lyle.”
“Your welcome, Gram.” He takes the nail and holds it
loosely in his hands. “Gram?”

“Yes?”

“Did people always come back like this?”

“I don’t know, Pumpkin.” She sighs, more out of expecta-
tion than anything else, he figures. She hasn’t drawn a breath
since she sat up. “I should be going now, I think. Before I start
getting hungry again.”

He nods, then walks over to the table to retrieve the ham-
mer. He looks at the automatic in his hand, then lays it down
on the table. He takes the .38 out of his pocket, too. When he
walks back over, he carries only the hammer and the nail. She
is smiling.

“Goodbye, Gram.”

“Goodbye, Pumpkin.”

She lays down in her coffin, folds her arms over her chest.
He steps forward and places the tip of the nail against her
forehead. She closes her eyes. He holds the hammer over the
head, then brings it up for the first blow. Calmly, quietly, she
starts to sing.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound ...”

Tink.

112

Shane Stewart

. Th-that saved a-a wretch li-ike meee ...”

Tink.

“. . . I-I once wassss losst, b-b-but n-n-ow I’m fff — ff — ”
“Found, Gram.”

“Ffff-found.” Her lips tremble slightly. “Ff-finish . . . i-it, P
p-p-pum ...”

He draws in breath as the hammer lifts. “Was blind . .
but now ... I see. . . .”

Tink.

T he Black Ros e

DON D'AMMASSA

Some pretty desperate characters had passed through the
town of Hopeless over the years, but none more dangerous
than the Black Rose and the Silverfish Kid. They rode in one
hot summer morning, without fanfare, all covered with trail
dust, inside and out. There was no mistaking Rose even from
a distance; her thick black hair fell almost to her waist and
the distinctive ebony flower bud was displayed on her saddle,
her boots, and on each of the holsters that rested against her
hips. If she hadn’t been with him, the Silverfish Kid might
have cut an impressive figure with his silver-handled pistols
and rhinestone- studded shirt, at least from a distance. Close
up, he was just another punk kid with a fancy wrapper. It
didn’t matter though, because all eyes were inevitably drawn
to Rose’s chalk-white face and fine figure.

Rose was an albino, and people said that the torment
she’d received from other kids during her childhood was what
had turned her so mean. Other folks said she’d been born
normal, and that something happened to her while she was
young that scared all the pigment out of her skin and into her
hair, which was as black as the darkest of nights. No one
knew for sure because no one really knew just where it was
that Rose grew up, and it was certain no one was about to ask
her.

Calling Hopeless a town was a bit of an exaggeration. It
had sprung up after a false rumor of a gold strike in a forgot-
ten and forgettable corner of the Arizona territory. There was
a saloon and a general store and a hotel and a blacksmith,
and the latter did carpentry and coffin making as well. The
barber did a little doctoring and a lot of dentistry. The whore-
house stood directly opposite the hotel, and it was better
maintained, and more frequently patronized. There was no
church, no sheriffs office, and the town hall hadn’t been used
in years; in fact, the faded sign over the front door still said
Hopeful, the town’s original name. A handful of small houses
were scattered around, most tenanted by broken-down gun-
fighters and retired outlaws who’d tucked away just enough to
live on, but whose faces had appeared on too many wanted
posters for comfort. Hopeless survived because it was in the

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Don D'Ammassa

middle of nowhere, and lawmen usually found excuses not to
ride out that way. Retired outlaws weren’t going to bother
anybody, and the active ones wouldn’t stay in a hellhole like
Hopeless for long enough to matter.

Old Ben Walters was the first to spot them. Ben’s bladder
had been bothering him lately and he was up early, relieving
himself against the back wall of Oates General Goods.
Something moved on the horizon, and he raised one hand to
shade his eyes, squinting because a brisk morning breeze was
blowing the dust around a bit livelier than usual. It took a few
seconds for his eyes to focus and count the two riders, and it
took a few minutes before they were close enough for him to
recognize Rose’s ebony hair. Most people in Hopeless knew
her only by reputation, but Old Ben had been visiting his sis-
ter in Kiamut City when she killed Deadpan Dooley right in
front of the Baptist Church, and blew off Deke Wilson’s cock
when he tried to backshoot her. Deke cut his own throat when
the town doctor left him alone for a few minutes, but the sher-
iff of Kiamut was heard to say that it was no tragedy Deke had
died.

Ben hastily tied up his pants and headed for the saloon,
figuring it was worth a free whiskey to be the one to announce
the newcomers, and pass on what he knew about the Black
Rose. Sam Grimm, the barkeep, would just be opening up,
and his wife would be serving eggs and corn meal muffins to
anyone willing to pay a dime for a plateful. As he made his
way down the alley to Main Street, Ben wondered who the sec-
ond rider might be. He couldn’t remember ever hearing that
Rose kept company with anyone longer than a single night.

As he’d expected, the saloon was open for business. Tom
Grogan and Dewey Martin were sitting at a table, playing
cards and drinking coffee that was almost certainly laced with
whiskey. One of the whores from across the street was wolf-
ing down eggs in the corner. Sam was behind the counter,
polishing the frame around the mirror. He glanced back over
his shoulder when he heard the doors swing open, nodded
without changing expression, and turned back to his work.

“Got visitors coming!” Ben nearly fell over a stray chair in
his haste to get to the bar. “It’s the Black Rose and some feller.”

Sam Grimm turned around, and his face showed just the
slightest hint of interest. “Black Rose, you say? Haven’t heard
her name in a while.”

“She keeps to herself, always rides alone. Doesn’t look for
trouble unless it’s looking for her first.”

“Sounds like she’s not riding alone any more.”

The Black Rose 1 1 5

That stumped him. “Something’s changed, that’s for cer-
tain. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Mary Grimm was pouring a cup of coffee for Ben when the
hoofbeats became audible. He left it sitting on the bar and
walked over to the swinging doors, staring back the way he’d
come. They were coming slowly down Main Street, the uniden-
tified man in front. Sam Grimm joined him, nodded to himself,
and turned away. ‘That’s the Silverfish Kid. Saw him over in
Winslow when I went for supplies beginning of spring. Just
starting to grow fuzz on his chin and already killed four men.”
Old Ben’s brow wrinkled. “Heard tell of him from one of
those Comancheros came through here a couple of months
back. Said the men he killed weren’t real gunfighters, just
farmers and suchlike that he picked a fight with.”

“Well, they’re dead farmers now anyways.” Sam turned
and was about to return to his polishing when Tom Grogan
joined them.

“He’s bad business, the Kid is. Figured he wouldn’t last
long; he’s never been that fast. Them first four he shot, they
wasn’t much at all.” Grogan took off his hat and scratched the
bald patch in the middle of his filthy mat of hair. “Saw him
take down Dermot Cross a month back. Queerest thing you
ever saw. Cross should have shot him six, seven times before
the Kid even had his gun out, but his pistol got tangled up in
the holster and he couldn’t pull it free in time. Three shots in
the chest and down he went.”

“Dame Luck is fickle,” said Sam.

“Mebbe so. Mebbe not. Jack and Curly Blackburn tried to
bushwhack the Kid when he left town the next day. Didn’t see
it myself, but they had their younger brother along to hold the
horses, and young Jeb says Curly’s feet went out from under
him at just the right time to spoil the ambush. Slid down from
behind his cover and took a bullet right in the face. Jack
comes up behind the Kid with a dead bead on his back, but
he’s got a bad shell in his shotgun and it doesn’t fire. He gets
gutshot and dies in his little brother’s arms.”

“Sounds like the Kid got himself a good luck charm.”

The twosome pulled up in front of the saloon and tied off
their horses. Ben retreated to the bar and pretended to be
interested in his coffee, but Sam stayed at the door and swung
it open to admit the newcomers. “Welcome to Hopeless, folks.
What can I get you?”

“Whiskey.” Rose had a deep, gravelly voice that seemed to
echo inside her throat. She brushed past Sam and headed
straight for the bar. Her eyes swiftly catalogued everything and

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Don D'Ammassa

everyone in sight, but she reacted to none of it. She was a
striking woman, if not conventionally attractive, not yet thirty
but with eyes infinitely older.

The Kid stuck his thumbs inside his gunbelt and saun-
tered in without speaking, his face lit by an exaggerated grin
that emphasized all of his worst features. A pencil thin, lop-
sided mustache hung over a comically weak chin. His eyes
were narrow and a little bit glazed, as if he’d been buying
peyote from the Indians or drinking a mite too much and too
often. There was a curly white scar on his temple, and one of
his ears was missing its lobe. He might have been twenty- two,
but his eyes were those of a ten-year- old. Not a particularly
likable ten-year-old, either.

Sam sighed and followed, poured Rose a whiskey, which
she tossed down. He poured another for the Kid, who picked
it up and sipped, then grimaced and set the glass down hard
enough that some of the liquid splashed out. “That’s pretty
raw, barkeep. Why don’t you bring out the good stuff?”

Sam refilled Rose’s glass. “Folks around here don’t take
much interest in high-priced drinks. This is as good as it gets.”

“Shit! I’ve had better served as medicine.” The Kid smiled,
revealing a pair of wooden teeth, and leaned forward.
Something that sparkled even in the dim light glittered
against his none-too-clean chest. “C’mon now, barkeep. I bet
you’ve got at least one bottle of the good stuff tucked away for
yourself.”

Sam’s voice remained flat, but he carefully avoiding meet-
ing the gunman’s eyes. “We don’t do much drinking ourselves.
You might try Miss Gordon across the way. I hear she keeps
some fine brandy around for special occasions.”

The Kid’s face twitched into a mask of impatience. “Who
the hell is Miss Gordon?”

“Runs the bordello.” Rose answered without looking up
from her drink, which was already half gone.

“What the hell’s a bordello ?' There was a dangerous whine
in the Kid’s voice now. Tom Grogan stood up abruptly and
walked out of the saloon, leaving his winnings sitting on the
table.

“It’s a whorehouse,” Sam explained quietly. “Right across
from the hotel next door.”

The Kid laughed, an ugly, high pitched sound that held
little resemblance to humor. “Oh, well, we’ll be paying Miss
Gordon a visit soon enough, won’t we, doll?” He put his arm
around Rose and gave her a squeeze. She didn’t react in any
way, just continued to sip at her whiskey. The Kid glanced

The Black Rose

117

around the room. “I’ll bet y’all wonder why anyone keeping
company with a fine-looking woman like this would be inter-
ested in visiting a whorehouse.”

No one was, but that didn’t stop him from explaining.

“I got me some powerful needs. Rose here gets plumb
tuckered out sometimes trying to keep up, so whenever we get
the chance, I like to spread myself around a bit. You know
how it is.” He leered at Sam, who carefully pretended not to
notice, just started polishing the nearly spotless bar with his
rag. Rose abruptly tossed down the rest of her drink and
extended her arm. Sam made the bottle reappear and poured
her another.

The Kid hesitated like a medicine show spieler who sud-
denly realizes his audience has drifted away. His lower lip
trembled slightly and his hands clenched and unclenched.
Sam must have sensed something because he dropped the
cloth on the bar and casually reached down to where he kept
his shotgun ready. But the moment of tension passed, and
the Kid finished off his drink and tossed a coin down so hard
that it bounced and fell behind the counter.

“C’mon, Rose. Let’s find ourselves something decent to
drink.” And he was off toward the door without looking back.
Rose finished her third whiskey, removed some coins from her
pocket, and placed them carefully on the polished bar before
following, her face as expressionless as ever.

Dewey Martin stood up and came over to the bar to pay
his tab. “That there’s trouble,” he said quietly. “No sense at all
and a bad temper to boot. She must’ve been pretty desperate
to fall for that one.”

Mary Grimm stepped out from the shadows where she’d
been standing. “That’s not the way it is. She hates him, pure
and simple. He’s got a rope on her though, one she can’t slip.
He’d better hope she never does.”

•f T T

Emma Gordon once ran one of the better whorehouses in
St. Louis. Then one night a drunken customer mistook her
daughter for one of the girls, and when she fought him he hit
her a few times too many and broke her neck. Emma neutered
and blinded him with a straight razor, but it turned out he
was the son of a senator and the next day she was on the run.
The senator was an unforgiving man with a long memory and
lots of friends, and she’d almost lost her freedom more than
once before she faked her death and sneaked off to Hopeless
with what was left of her savings.

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Don D'Ammassa

She’d measured the Kid pretty accurately by the time he’d
burst into her front room and announced his purpose: not
very bright, a brittle personality caught between the image of
himself he was trying to create and the one he secretly recog-
nized. The woman who joined them a moment later was more
of a mystery. She’d heard of the Black Rose, an introspective
loner who only broke the law when it was necessary, but who
never seemed to hesitate when the need arose. Rumor had it
she’d killed more than twenty men; Emma suspected it was
half that. But none of them had been pokes with roving hands
or sloppy mouths. That type she treated roughly, but broken
bones and broken pride both healed eventually. The ones she
killed were a different breed, living by their guns. Even the one
lawman on her tally had been a corrupt bully who used his
office to legitimize his crimes.

“We heard tell you had soft women and hard liquor, and
we’re of a mind to enjoy them both,” the Kid announced.

Emma gestured toward the overstuffed couch, but neither
the Kid nor Rose made a move in that direction. “It’s a little
early for either,” she said quietly. “My girls need their beauty
rest.”

The Kid pulled a handful of silver coins from his pocket
and tossed them down on a mahogany tabletop so hard that
they scarred the finish. “Who gives a shit about their beauty
rest? It’s not their faces I’m interested in. We been riding all
night and we need some relaxing — and we need it right now.”

Emma drew a deep breath. “All right, have a seat and I’ll
call them down.”

Apparently soothed by her quick surrender, the Kid visi-
bly calmed. “That’s better. And don’t forget the liquor. The
good stuff, not the crap they serve over in the saloon.”

“I’ll bring some brandy.” And she was off.

Ten minutes later, three younger women descended from
the second floor, two of them yawning and rubbing their eyes.
Emma brought a fancy silver tray with a bottle of brandy and
two glasses, set it on the mahogany table, and made the silver
coins disappear. ‘This is Lily and Milly and Carlotta. Mandy’s
got a fever and Marybeth’s out, probably eating breakfast over
at the saloon.” She poured the brandy.

The Kid emptied his glass with one toss and smacked his
lips. “That’s smooth, right enough. Ain’t you got any bigger
glasses than this?”

Emma ignored him, let her eyes flicker over to where Rose
stood. The albino hadn’t made a move toward her drink, was
staring flatly out the front window toward the street. “I charge

The Black Rose

119

two dollars per visit. The girls keep all their tips, so if you’re
pleased, you don’t have to worry about the money going to me.
Drinks are extra. My girls are clean and they’re good at their
job and I don’t tolerate any violence.”

At some unseen signal, two men stepped into the room, one
black, one at least half Apache. They didn’t say anything, but
the message was clear. The Kid glanced in their direction, then
laughed nervously. “I don’t treat my women badly, do I, Rose?”

She didn’t answer, and he repeated the question, a bit
more sharply.

“No, Kid, you treat your women just fine.” Her voice was
completely neutral, but Emma gave her a quick glance, and a
small frown.

The Kid glanced over at the three women and his finger
pointed at Milly. “We’ll take that one.”

Looking neither pleased nor unhappy, Milly stepped for-
ward and took the Kid’s hand in hers. “Right this way, lover.”

She started to lead him toward the stairs but he stopped
and turned back. “C’mon, Rose. Don’t let’s keep the lady
waiting.”

For just a split second there was a flicker of expression on
Rose’s face, but it passed too quickly to be recognized. Then
she turned and followed. Emma watched them climb the
stairs, troubled in her thoughts, then shook her head and
shot a look at the two men that warned them to stay on their
toes. Just in case.

•f T T

Milly led them to a surprisingly large room with an unsur-
prisingly large bed, and started to remove her clothing. The
Kid plopped himself down in a caneback chair and watched
while the Rose stood, motionless, just inside the door. Milly
was down to just her underwear when she paused.

“What’s the story? Is she going to watch or what?”

The Kid laughed unpleasantly. “No, love. I’m the one who’s
gonna do the watching.”

Milly glanced back and forth between the two, not under-
standing until Rose sighed audibly and began removing her
own clothing.

T T T

Marybeth returned while Emma was still standing at the
foot of the stairs, wondering what was going on above her
head. “They here?”

Emma glanced at the younger woman, nodded. “They’re
upstairs with Milly.”

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Don D'Ammassa

“Poor Milly. She always gets the queer ones, don’t she?”
Marybeth spotted the untouched glass of brandy and took it
without asking. It felt wonderful burning its way down her
throat. “Anything wrong?”

“I don’t know, Marybeth. Something just doesn’t feel
right.”

4 4 4

Milly recovered from her surprise and gave a little shrug.
“Long as you’re paying, I got no problem with that.” She and
Carlotta slept together from time to time, although neither of
them had ever had a lady customer before. It took only a few
seconds to remove the rest of her clothing, and when she was
completely naked, she turned to size up her prospective lover.
Rose had just shucked off her shirt and vest, and was
crouched over, working on her jeans. She straightened up just
about then and Milly got her first good luck, and that’s when
she started screaming.

The Kid was amused at first, but he heard heavy feet
rushing up the stairs, and sighed. “I wish you’d just shut up
and get down to the loving,” he said angrily. Milly closed her
mouth and stretched out her arms for Rose, and then some-
one was knocking on the door and the Kid pulled his gun and
eased the door just far enough open that those outside could
see the muzzle. The two roughnecks were standing in the hall,
and Emma Gordon was right behind them.

“No call to get excited folks. Everything’s fine. The lady
just saw a mouse run across the floor. Now if we’ll all just get
back to minding our own business, I’ll be taking care of mine.”
No one moved for a handful of long seconds, and finally the
Kid let the door slide a bit farther open, almost as if by acci-
dent, to let those who were outside see the two women locked
in a squirming, passionate embrace on the bed. “C’mon folks,
I’m not getting my money’s worth standing here jawing with
you all.”

Another beat and Emma nodded. “Just remember what I
told you about not hurting my girls.”

“I won’t hurt a hair on the pretty thing’s head, ma’am.”
And he closed the door.

The Kid and the Black Rose left about an hour later,
crossed to the hotel, and got themselves a room for the night.
Emma Gordon went upstairs right after they left, to check on
Milly. She found the girl naked, huddled under her blankets,
apparently unharmed but in a state of mild shock. Emma
asked her repeatedly what had caused her to scream, but Milly

The Black Rose 1 2 1

never said a thing — and would never say anything again in her
entire life.

T + T

More strangers showed up in Hopeless later that day, and
this time it was Crazy Ed Kane who brought the news. Crazy
Ed was well into his fifties, a respectable age for a broken-
down gunfighter who had at least five enemies somewhere for
each of the fifteen notches on his belt. Ed got lucky late in life,
doublecrossed his partners after robbing a train, and retired
to Hopeless with enough gold to last more than a lifetime. But
he’d also picked up a disease from a whore down in Juarez,
and his brain was so pickled that no one knew when he was
talking straight and when he was getting times and places
confused in his mind.

So Dewey Martin went out to check and, sure enough,
there was a big cloud of dust heading their way. “At least eight
or ten riders,” he told the group assembled in the saloon.
About two dozen regulars had drifted in during the afternoon,
more than usual, thirsting after information about the Black
Rose as much as for the liquor.

“Posse?” Sam leaned forward on the bar, thinking hard.

“Might be. Either that or Comancheros back from raiding
up north.”

Sam tapped his fingers. “All right, someone better go warn
our visitors.” He didn’t much care what happened to the Kid,
but Rose was another matter, and Hopeless existed because it
protected those who claimed refuge there. Oh, they wouldn’t
raise their guns to drive off the law. That would bring them
the wrong kind of attention, even goad someone in authority
into doing something about the rogue settlement. But they’d
warn them and hide them and play dumb.

Old Ben volunteered, and a minute later Maggie Riley gave
him the room number and he was hobbling up the stairs, one
hand pressed against his sore kidney. He knocked on the door
of number six, and it opened so quick that it was obvious
Rose had been standing right behind it. Beyond, he could see
the Kid roll over in the bed.

“What the hell is it now?”

“Company coming. Could be the law. We’ve got a place
you can hide, down in the basement. Behind a false wall.
Someone’s already taken your horses out for a stroll so’s they
won’t be spotted.”

The Kid rolled out of bed with surprising grace. “Ain’t
hiding from nobody. Won’t be necessary.”

122

Don D'Ammassa

4 4 4

Half an hour later, an even dozen hard-looking men dis-
mounted in front of the saloon. Tom Grogan identified one of
them as Sheriff Bartlett from Parker’s Passing, a good-sized
town about a hundred miles to the west. “He’s a tough man.
Beat a drifter to death once.”

Sam Grimm sighed and walked outside to greet the new-
comers.

“Afternoon, gentleman. Welcome to Hopeless. First drink
is on the house.”

Bartlett adjusted his jacket so his badge showed. “We’re
not here to drink. We’re looking for someone — tall thin man
with a bad laugh, short woman with black hair and a white
face.”

“And what makes you think they’re hereabouts, Sheriff?”

Bartlett never had a chance to answer. The Kid and the
Black Rose appeared as if by magic, standing in the middle of
the street. The Kid looked confident, Rose indifferent. The
sheriffs men slowly moved apart, some checking to make sure
they had a clear reach for their holsters, others moving rifles
to a more convenient position.

“Don’t you know when to quit, Sheriff.” The Kid seemed
both peeved and pleased at the same time. “How many of your
deputies do we have to kill before you get the message?”

Sam stepped back and away, and the handful of onlookers
who had emerged from the other buildings in town began to
retreat, as well.

“One of those you cut down was my kid brother. You didn’t
really think I’d just let you ride away after that, did you?”

“Would’ve been better for you if you had.” The Kid sighed
dramatically. “Well, I suppose we ought to get this over with.”

Afterward, no two people ever agreed on just exactly what
happened, but Sam Grimm stood straight and watched and
what he saw was that Rose got off three shots before any other
gun spoke, and three men fell in the street and never got up
again. Then there was lead flying every which way, and Sam
hastily found himself some cover — but not before he watched
Sheriff Bartlett fumble his revolver and drop it in the dirt, and
a horse shy and knock over two of the deputies, and another
deputy take a bad step and lose his balance, and still another
have his gun jam. The Kid emptied both his pistols and clicked
on empty chambers a few times before his arms dropped.

Not one member of the posse was moving and, impossible
as it seemed, both the Kid and Rose were standing there,
apparently unscathed.

The Black Rose

123

The Kid raised the back of his hand to his mouth and sti-
fled a yawn. “You see to things here, Rose. I’m going back to
bed.” And he turned and walked back toward the hotel, as
though nothing at all had happened.

The townspeople were already crowding around to see if
any of the deputies had survived, and to help themselves to
their belongings. Sam grimaced and looked at Rose and she
looked at him. “C’mon inside,” he said. “I’ll get you a drink.”
The saloon was deserted when they entered. Sam poured
her a whiskey, and then poured one for himself, and they sat
at a table and looked at one another. “Been a long time, Rose.”
She glanced around uneasily, until Sam shook his head.
“Mary’s gone back to the house.” He swallowed some of the
whiskey. “I told you I was married, Rose.”

“Yes, but it’s different, seeing her like that. You always said
you were the settling-down type, but I never really believed it.”
“And you weren’t — aren’t.”

“Do you love her?”

He hesitated before answering. “She’s a good person and a
good friend. She’s loyal to me and supports me in every way. I
can’t imagine living without her. Yes, I love her, Rose. Not the
way you and I loved each other, but more comfortable like.”
She let a ghost of a smile tickle the corners of her mouth,
but it was gone almost as soon as it arrived. “Do you ever miss
what we had?”

He hesitated again. “Yes — yes, I do. I wouldn’t trade what
I’ve got for it, but I don’t have any regrets either.”

“Then you’re a lucky man, and she’s a lucky woman.” She
finished her drink and turned to look toward the swinging
doors, and when she did, her vest flapped open, revealing what
lay beneath.

“You’ve been hit!” Sam was on his feet, alarmed.

Rose glanced down at the hole in her silk shirt and
shrugged. “Just a scratch. I’m not even bleeding.” And she
laughed, but it was thin and humorless. “Don’t fret.”

He eased back down into the chair. “What happened,
Rose? Why are you with him? He’s trash.”

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“Reason enough to get on the wrong side of the law? We
don’t talk much in this town, but someone’s gonna come look-
ing when twelve men disappear, and sooner or later word will
get out how they died.”

“Don’t push it, Sam. I don’t want to talk about it.”

She started to get up, but he reached out and caught her
arm. “Do you remember the promise we made that night?”

124

Don D'Ammassa

Her face was still a mask, but her eyes reflected a terrible
sadness. “Don’t make me do this, Sam. You’re better off not
knowing.”

“We promised each other the truth, Rose. I’ve kept my side
of the bargain. Are you going to renege now?”

She met his eyes, held them, waited for him to waver. He
never faltered. He was the only man who’d ever matched her
stare. “Pour me another drink.”

He did, she drank it, and he waited some more. “Rose?”
“All right, damn it!” She stood up. “You want the truth?
Here it is!” She opened her vest and then she unbuttoned the
black silk shirt beneath it, and Sam saw the neat little bullet
hole in her shoulder, the flesh torn — but no blood, not a drop.
That wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst was the other
three bullet holes in her abdomen. They weren’t bleeding
either, but they were filled with a churning mass of maggots.

She gave him an eyeful, then buttoned her blouse and sat
down. He sat stunned while she poured out two more drinks.
“How?” It was the only thing he could think to say.

“The Kid did it. He took some kind of talisman off an
Indian shaman about a year ago. Wore it around his neck as
a souvenir, eventually figured out that it granted wishes.
Apparently he wished that he would win every gunfight with-
out getting a scratch. We crossed paths shortly after that and
he — well, he killed me. Damned bird flew between us and took
my first two shots. The third was a misfire.”

Sam was visibly shaken, but his voice was calm. “What
did you mean, he killed you?”

“Just what I said. I’m dead, Sam. Then he wished that I
was alive to do his bidding or something like that, and so I
am, more or less, and I have to do exactly what he tells me.
Frankly, I liked it better dead. Only good part is the Kid can’t
get it up, so he doesn’t bother me.” She sighed. “But he does
like watching me do it with others. Men, women, animals,
doesn’t matter to him.”

“I’ll kill him.” Sam started to rise and Rose pulled him
back down.

“He’d kill you, Sam. Even if you snuck up on him from
behind. Even if you had four men holding him down. You
can’t even backshoot him. There ain’t a bullet made that can
touch him, so long as he’s got that talisman.”

“Then I’ll take it away from him first.”

“He sleeps with one hand resting on his gun and he sleeps
real light.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t get it. If he can wish for

The Black Rose 1 25

anything he wants, what the hell is he doing in a rathole like
this?” He spread his arms to encompass the entire town.

“The boy’s not too bright, for one thing. For another, the
charm doesn’t always work. The old wishes stay in effect, but
it takes a couple of months before it’ll grant a new one. He just
wasted one last night, in fact. Wished his whore would stop
screaming and be quiet. She’s quiet now, and always will be.
He just wasn’t thinking what he was doing. If it were mine — ”
her eyes looked off at something invisible to Sam “ — I’d be real
thoughtful about my wishes. First, I’d undo a couple of
things — ” her hand moved unconsciously to touch her maimed
abdomen “ — and then I’d take some time to just think. Go off
by my own self someplace and figure out just what I want to
do with my life.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed as he remembered something. “You
said something about screaming. He didn’t hurt one of Emma’s
girls, did he?”

She glanced away so he couldn’t see her eyes. “Didn’t hurt
her, exactly. Scared her a lot. She’s never gonna be the same
again, though.”

“Oh my God!” Sam was up and running before Rose could
stop him, and when she followed him outside, he was already
at Emma Gordon’s door. He disappeared inside.

Puzzled, Rose started to walk that way, noticing that all of
the bodies had been removed from the street. She was stand-
ing in front of the hotel when Sam reappeared, running in her
direction.

“Emma’s gone after him,” he said hoarsely. “She’s already
killed two men for roughing up her girls. I’ve gotta stop her.”

Rose stepped aside to let him pass, not interfering, but
not caring. She followed more for lack of anything better to do
than for any other reason.

Sam reached the landing at the top of the stairs and
paused for breath. All of the doors were closed and there was
no one in sight. There was nothing but silence. He had a pre-
sentiment that something terrible had happened, and wanted
to turn away, but he couldn’t abandon Emma. So he walked
to the door of room six and raised his hand to knock.

The door was ajar.

He pushed it open slowly, ready to bolt if he saw a gun
pointing in his direction. Instead, he saw the Kid, lying in his
underwear on top of the blankets. The Kid was smiling, but
not with his mouth. His mouth was twisted into an expression
of surprise and shock, and his smile was a bright red crescent
under his chin.

126

Don D'Ammassa

Emma Gordon sat on a chair beside the bed. She hadn’t
brought a gun, but there was a brand new straight razor in
her lap. She looked up at Sam with her face set resolutely. “He
hurt one of my girls,” she said quietly. “No one hurts my girls.”
Rose entered the room, looked down at the mess on the
bed, and for the first time since coming to Hopeless, she
smiled.

+ + +

The Black Rose left Hopeless around dusk that evening.
She had a final drink at the saloon, then saddled up and
headed out of town without saying where she was going. The
last rays of the failing sun touched her as she went, and
reflected brilliantly from the shiny bauble she wore against
her breast, a breast that rose and fell with her breathing for
the first time in months. She wondered how long it would be
before she could make her next wish.

Charlie’s Hole

JESSE BULLINGTON

“Get in the goddamn hole, Private!” Sergeant Reister was
bellowing now.

“No, sir,” Tosh repeated.

“You miserable piece of panda shit, get in the hole!”

“No, sir.”

“I’m giving you to the count of five to get your scrawny ass
down there before I put you there permanently, you disre-
spectful faggot.”

“No, sir.”

I felt sure Reister was gonna lay him out right there, put
a bullet in his head or maybe just beat the life out of him, but
no — he just stared at Tosh, loathing emanating from his eyes.
All fifteen of us did our best to pretend not to notice the con-
frontation, but I’m sure everyone there could see the score.
Tosh had snapped, and Reister didn’t give two shits.

“Five,” Reister said levelly. “You are not in the hole,
Private.”

“I am not going down there, sir,” Tosh said, as if Reister
hadn’t heard right the first nine times.

“Am I to understand you are disobeying a direct order?”
Reister now looked perfectly calm — serene, even. His smooth
face glowed in the sunlight, giving him the look of a warlord,
as opposed to a grimy sergeant.

“That is correct, sir,” Tosh said in that monotone voice of
his. “I’ve gone down six holes in the last month. That’s every
damn hole we’ve come across, and I’m sick of this shit. I’m no
goddamn tunnel-rat, and you know it.”

“Do you know what happens if you disobey my direct
orders, you yellow turd?” Reister asked real sweetly.

“Court-martial, the brig,” Tosh shrugged. “I don’t care
anymore. Anything to get the hell away from your crazy ass.”

“Court-martial?” Reister grinned. “Court-martial’s for a
trial. Trivial offenses only, my boy. What you’re talking about
is sedition.”

All the chatter stopped right then, and to my horror I saw
Collins slinking toward me. Collins is definitely all right, but he
usually thinks with his lips instead of his brain. He might’ve
been the best friend I’ve had here, but his smart mouth had

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Jesse Bullington

gotten us the worst goddamn post possible: point. And the
last thing this situation needed was a heckler. I tried to scoot
away, but where could I go?

“Sedition?” Tosh yelled, finally raising his voice. “I didn’t
say shit about sedition and you know it!”

“Disobeying my direct orders is incitement to rebellion,
and I have authority to neutralize a rebellion by any means
necessary,” Reister said cheerily. “At sea we’d call it mutiny,
plain and simple.”

At this all the other grunts ceased their chores to watch
things play out, and all pretenses were dropped as Reister’s
hand folded up to grip the handle of his M-16. Some of the
fellahs trained their pieces at Tosh. Others leaned forward,
puffing their cigarettes. The shit was about to go down.

“Do it, then,” Tosh shouted. “Enough of this bullshit!”

“You’re going down that hole or you will be one dead dink,
I shit you not,” Reister spat.

I knew Tosh was gonna bite it right then and there, when
Collins leans over to me, never minding the cataclysmic turn
events had taken, and opens that goddamn mouth of his.

“Reister’s hoping to find a Silver Star down one of these
holes,” the stupid fuck says as loud as day.

Did I say things were tense before? Shit. I heard a drop of
sweat explode louder than a shell as it struck a leaf, and then
the silence was broken. Shattered would be a better word.

“Fuckin’ goddamn hell!” Reister’s full attention had
swiveled to Collins and me. “You think there’s something funny
about the way I run my ship, queerbait?”

He advanced on us through his disciples, and stopped ten
feet away. I about shit my pants. I thought I was gonna get it,
gunned down by my own sergeant. Reister looked back and
forth between Collins and me. I was tempted to put my Colt
in my mouth and end it all there, but I didn’t.

“Eh?” I saw, with a mix of relief and dismay, that Reister
was pleased. Immensely pleased. “Laugh it up, butt-buddies,
’cause you’re going with him.”

He turned back to Tosh, calling, “Now you got someone to
hold your hand down there.”

“More like his dick!” this big gorilla named Frank says,
and all the grunts have a good belly laugh at our expense.
Reister beamed at us like we’d just won a new car. I looked to
the hole, where Tosh stood.

The mouth of the tunnel gaped at me like an open grave.
It was an almost predatory opening, a gap in the floor of the
jungle. Roots stuck out of its side, and I felt queasy watchin’

Charlies Hole 129

Tosh stick his head in there. It didn’t look so steep, leisurely
arcing down into the earth.

I shook like the coward I was as I descended into my first
tunnel, Tosh’s boots kicking wet dirt into my mouth. Of all the
places to lose my VCTS cherry, it had to be this damn hole?
The only good thing was that it hadn’t been used in a while;
the flip side of this being spiders, centipedes, and worse, all on
my ass. All I’d brought was my pistol and canteen, and even
then it felt tighter than a nun’s ass in there. I even forgot my
flashlight, so all I could see were shadows cast on Tosh’s butt.

With each foot I wriggled, it got worse and worse, claustro-
phobic as fuck. I felt like I’d reverted to the me of six month’s
ago — freshmeat, a pussy. Of course, we all were. Assholes,
dickheads, limpdicks, dickbiters, dicksmokers, faggots,
queers, girls, bitches, pussies, pukes, chickenshit mother-
fuckers; any insult you can think of, Reister had called us. I’d
always wanted to stick up for Tosh when Reister fucked with
him, but how could I? I’d been in here for twenty-three weeks
and five days, and I still got teary every time I went on point. A
couple of times I’d nearly collapsed with fear in the jungle, so
scared I couldn’t breathe.

This felt worse. Much, much worse. I had no idea how far
we’d gone, wondering if gunfire would come from ahead or
behind. Reister, that psychotic bastard. I suddenly hated
Tosh for causing the whole mess, and Collins even more. Then
I hated myself for being such a pussy.

On we went, into the mud, into the very ass of Vietnam,
until Tosh stopped, and I rammed my skull into his boot.

“It’s cool,” he said. Twisting his waist, he squirmed for-
ward and disappeared from sight.

I could hardly breathe, and I nearly vomited as Tosh
helped me out of the tunnel and into the tiny cave ahead.

“Dead end,” Tosh whispered, waving his light around the
burrow.

It couldn’t have been more than a dozen feet across, and
maybe six feet wide, but after that tunnel it felt as spacious
as any mess hall. Collins’ orange head poked out of the hole
and we helped him up. Even squatting so our asses brushed
the soft earth, my head still raked on the ceiling. It was a god-
damn miracle this place hadn’t caved in.

“Thank God,” Collins panted, spitting dirt and pawing his
vest.

“Lucky there weren’t any snakes in this one,” Tosh said as
he leaned back and unscrewed his canteen. “Last one Sergeant
sent me down had a goddamn pit viper in it.”

130

Jesse Bullington

My breathing had almost returned to normal, when
Collins lights up a joint. I swear, that mother can be a right
dick sometimes. I started coughing and turned to go back up
the tunnel. I felt spooked, nauseous, cramped, and was more
than ready to get topside. Tosh grabbed my boot, though, and
turned to Collins.

“Put that shit out before you smoke up all our oxygen,” he
told Collins, as he passed me his canteen.

After a few more puffs, Collins stamped out his Jay and
we all just laid back for a second. It stunk like weed and mold
down in that cave, and I turned to leave again.

“What’s your hurry?” Tosh asked. “This hole’s cool — no
other tunnels.”

“But Reister,” I began.

“Fuck ’em,” he said. “He’ll just have us stand watch or some
shit when we get out. Better off down here with the spiders.”

“So, Tosh — ” Collins said, but Tosh cut him off.

“Toshiro, man. Toshiro,” Tosh grinned. “I hate that ‘Tosh’
shit.”

“So what’s with you and Reister?” Collins asked him. “He
seems eager to get rid of you.”

“Why do you think?” Tosh snapped with sudden intensity.
“Because in his book I’m just another slope, not a Japanese-
American, not an American at all.”

We were all quiet for a second, but then Collins, of course,
keeps prodding.

“Jesus, why don’t you transfer?”

“Why don’t you?” Tosh smiled weakly. “No one gets out of
this squad without his okay. I’ve tried, but he’s not down. He
wants me dead out here, and that’s that.”

“Bastard,” Collins muttered, and began chewing up the
remainder of his joint.

“What’s his damage?” I thought aloud.

“Former drill sergeant,” Tosh answered. “Got tired of being
an asshole back home, needed to come be an asshole over
here. Wanted to ‘see the shit,’ he told us once. ‘Need to get
some gook blood under my fingernails.’ Stupid redneck fuck.”

I slipped as my boots shifted in the sloppy dirt, and I top-
pled backward. I didn’t hit the wall very hard, but my shoul-
der sunk in deep, so deep I had to put my elbow in the wall to
push myself up.

“So I’m the only guy who thinks Reister’s nuts, at least
until you guys showed up,” Tosh continued while Collins
turned his flashlight on me. “I can’t get him court-martialed,
and even if I did, I’d get fucked up.”

Charlie’s Hole 131

“Oh shit,” I managed, as the part of wall I’d hit collapsed,
and I pitched onto Collins to avoid falling in.

“Shut up, shut up,” Tosh hissed, pointing his pistol and
flashlight into the gap I’d busted in the wall. Tosh scooted to
it and punched out a few more heaps of clay. Between the two
beams of light we could see a second tunnel running along-
side the wall. It was a little larger than the first, but not by
much.

“Must’ve been a T-intersection they blocked off,” Tosh
whispered as he flashed his light down the tunnel in either
direction. As he did, we all heard a faint rustling, but it went
silent before we could get a bead on which way it had come
from.

No one spoke, but a decision was made. There was no
point in arguing; we were going down there. Not for Reister;
not for the greater glory of the USMC; but for our own lives,
worthless though they may be. The noise told us Vincent
Charles was close, and we stood a much better chance down
here than in his jungle later tonight. Splitting up was our only
option. If they got behind us, we were fucked.

Tosh went right, Collins and me went left. We were to
meet back at the cave in one hour. That seemed a helluva long
time to me, but it was slow going in those tunnels. Collins had
the flashlight, so I wiggled after him in the darkness. After a
few dozen feet, I managed to get around so I could look behind
us, but Tosh’s light had already vanished. All I could hear was
the wheezing of Collins’ lungs and the gurgling in my own
sorry guts.

The fear washed back over me, and I started to lag behind.
Once I tried to tell Collins to wait up, but he shushed me
immediately. I had to stop several times to get my breathing
sorted out, and I was sure we must’ve gone too far. After shak-
ing off the willies for the hundredth time, I noticed Collins had
stopped up ahead at an intersection. It was another T, our
tunnel dead-ending into it. I scrambled through the tight hole,
unable to see anything but the firefly of Collins’ flashlight far
ahead of me.

I’d calmed down a bit, when my already- strained nerves
were snapped by a sudden burst of gunfire somewhere back
in the tunnels. Three shots in quick succession, then silence,
then the rest of the clip going off. The possibilities were end-
less, but none of them were good. I cupped my hands to call
out to Collins, but paused, unsure if I should disturb the
tomblike quiet that had again enveloped the tunnel.

Then I heard the screams. The echoing wails came from

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Jesse Bullington

back the way we’d come, from Tosh. The shrieking got worse
and worse, rising in pitch until it cut off suddenly.

For a while I lay still in the tunnel, feeling dizzy all of a
sudden. Then Collins was waving his light in my eyes, and I
lost it. I began to kick and claw the walls and ceiling, cover-
ing myself in mud.

“Get yer ass over here,” Collins called out, his voice boom-
ing. “Chill the fuck out!”

Getting myself under control, I moved forward once more.
Every few yards I’d have to stop and squirm around to glance
back down the passage, even though I couldn’t see a damn
thing. I was getting close to Collins, a scant twenty-five feet
away, when I heard it.

There are no words to describe the horror I felt at hearing
that sound. I envied the dead as I heard that noise, and froze
in mid- wiggle. It was the unmistakable scraping of someone
or something pulling itself up the tunnel.

I groaned, trying to scream but too damn scared to do so.
Collins must have heard as well, because he hurled his flash-
light at me. It thudded off the floor, bouncing to within my
reach. I frantically drew my Colt and turned the light down
the tunnel. Its beam splashed over the pockmarked burrow,
fading out down the passage.

“Come on, get over here,” Collins said, his voice drowning
out the scrape-scraping.

Then it hit me, a warm breeze fluttering down the tunnel.
A sweet, charnel-house smell rode that draft, the odor of
southern fried slope. I thought of a guy I’d hated in my last
company, and how he’d smelled after the mortar had done its
work and left him to the jungle for a few hours. That same,
almost erotic smell of raw meat had hung over the crater his
remains were spattered about.

The light revealed nothing but an empty tunnel. Still, I
knew something lurked just beyond the beam’s reach. The
noise grew louder and louder, and the smell became worse
and worse. I wanted desperately to crawl up the tunnel to
Collins, but stayed rooted in place. Then the noise and stench
coagulated into a sight, making substance from shadow at the
tip of my beam, and all hell broke loose.

The thing didn’t crawl so much as slither, its leathery
skin sticking to the clay. I’d seen dead bodies on numerous
occasions, and more importantly, I’d smelled them. Even if
what came at me out of that pit had a whole face instead of
that larvae-infested quilt of rotting skin, even if its chest was
intact rather than split open and coated in gore; even then the

Charlie’s Hole 133

smell would have been enough for me to know: The thing was
dead. A dead gook — moving, for God’s sake!

Its left arm ended at the elbow, the flesh worn away to
reveal splintered bone and the ragged threads of nerve and
muscle. The fingers of its other hand were grated and man-
gled. Yet they pulled its mutilated body forward. As the thing
leered fully into the light, I could make out the brainpan
through a crack in its decaying face. It came at me out of the
darkness, and I went totally fucking apeshit.

The first few shots sank into the side of the tunnel, but the
weeping flesh-blossoms opening on its face and shoulders told
me I’d hit it a few times. It stopped, but only momentarily,
before lurching forward again. I sobbed and spat, pulling the
trigger again and again, even after the clip ran dry. Unable to
take my eyes off the crawling corpse, I tried to back up, but my
legs wouldn’t bend.

I chunked my empty gun at the crawling thing, but it fell
short. Before I knew what I was doing, I had thrown the flash-
light at it, too. That fell short, too, and worse — the light landed
pointing into the wall. Most everything went dark, except for a
small patch of tunnel wall lit up by the beam. I couldn’t see
the thing, but knew it was still there. And when the hand
grabbed me by the back of my collar, I thought it had gotten
behind me somehow — but it was only Collins, pulling me back
up the tunnel by my head and flailing arms.

He probably said something, but I all I could hear was the
scrape-scraping. And the smell — oh God, the smell! I stopped
thrashing as Collins hauled me backward in short jerks.
Scrape, scrape, scrape. Inspiration hit me, and I fumbled
madly at my vest. Just as Collins backed into one of the cross-
passages at the intersection, the thing bumped the flashlight
and the beam spun around to spotlight that oozing face.
Scraps of wet flesh dangled from its mouth, dribbling blood
onto the clay.

Screaming, I yanked the pin from a grenade. Collins was
screaming then, too, and I side-armed the explosive at the
oncoming horror. I badly wanted to see if it would hit, but
Collins punched me in the mouth. Then he was shoving me up
a tunnel, grinding his back into my folded knees.

The light came next, so bright I could see miles and miles
down the empty tunnel in front of me — hundreds of miles of
dirt and clay and light — and then I went black.

I awoke to Collins screaming, and hands clawing at my
legs. Whimpering, I kicked at the arms and began to pull myself
away up the tunnel. It had got us, and I dared not think what

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Jesse Bullington

kind of shit we were in. Then Collins stopped screaming, and
the hands stopped pawing.

“David,” Collins gasped from behind me. “David, it’s me,
oh fuck, it’s me, it’s me. ...”

He sounded far away down the tunnel. I wanted out of
this shit, out of this damn grave I’d crawled into. I thought of
the smell, and vomited onto myself.

“David,” Collins was saying, “Jesus, David, help me. I
can’t feel my legs. They’re gone — my legs, my fuckin’ legs.”

He began to cry, and in my delirium I crawled up the tun-
nel, away from the sobbing. The blast had done a number on
me, and I paused to try to get a grip on what had happened.
Run, I thought. Get out now. Then I remembered Collins lying
fucked up in the dark. Part of me had to keep moving, but just
as I resumed my crawling I heard Collins shouting my name.
I couldn’t leave him.

“David?” Collins whimpered. “Hey, fuckin’ say something,
man.”

“It’s me,” I mumbled, uncertain how to proceed. I backed
up a way, so that I lay awkwardly over Collins and could feel
his arms and chest under my legs.

“My lighter,” he groaned, and tried to get at his vest, but
my knees were in his way. Blind and half deaf, my head grind-
ing into the ceiling, I groped all over his muddy fatigues until
I found the bulge of his Zippo. I clumsily pulled it out and
squirmed off of him. It took some work, since I was shaking
so badly, but I got it lit after a few tries. I fearfully waved it in
Collins’ direction, and began to laugh. The light was feeble
compared to a flashlight, but I could clearly see that Collins
lay buried up to his thighs in dirt; the tunnel behind us had
caved in on him.

With some work we dug him out, and at finding his feet
intact, he began to laugh like it was all some big fucking prac-
tical joke. It was miraculous he hadn’t broken anything. He
seemed a little shook up, but otherwise okay.

“A grenade?” Collins said. ‘That was fuckin’ stupid.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, as those dingy old claws of fear
began digging themselves into my heart again, “I’m so sorry. I
didn’t mean to — oh shit, we are so fucked!”

Collins went silent, and he took his Zippo out of my hands
and flicked it closed.

“Turn it on,” I begged him.

“No.”

“Please, I can’t see — I can’t — I can’t,” I stuttered.

“Look,” Collins said, his voice a helluva lot sterner than I’d

Charlie’s Hole 135

ever heard it before, “we can’t get out the way we came. That’s
obvious.”

“But—”

“And if were gonna find another way out, we’ll need some
light. I don’t want to burn the fluid until we really need to see
something.”

And even though I knew he was right, I couldn’t stop
shaking.

Buried alive, I kept thinking. My dumbass had buried us
alive. How far to the surface? Were we going up or down? What
was that thing? Seriously, what the fuck was it?

“Let’s get going,” Collins said, and I was squashed into the
mud as he scrambled over me.

My fear didn’t leave, but I beat it into submission, and fol-
lowed Collins. Every time I moved forward, though, I’d sniff
the air and perk my ears a bit. For shit’s sake, I was scared.

All I could hear was the sound we made as we went,
scraping and squishing. Rather than growing used to the
dark, my eyes seemed to tint, the blackness appearing to
thicken and harden. Several times we rested, our fingers just
as raw and aching as our knees were bruised and sore. Once
I thought I smelled the stench again, but immediately realized
it was only my own stink of piss and puke and sweat. We
encountered no adjoining passages, and I began to lose hope.

I had no grenades, no gun, and no flashlight — only a god-
damn jackknife. The death I’d sentenced us to would not be
quick. I couldn’t stop thinking about the creature, and wanted
to know what Collins thought about it, but he wasn’t in the
mood for conversation.

Collins stopped suddenly after God-knows-how-many
hours, and I immediately curled up to get some shut-eye. He
kicked me, and I was about to tell him to fuck off when I saw
it, too: A speck of light glittered far off down the tunnel, a spot
of brilliance in the catacombs.

I heard Collins un-holster his Colt, and as quietly as we
could, we resumed crawling. My guts jumped about in agita-
tion, and I had to suppress my giggles. We had finally made it,
dragged our worn-out bodies through miles of tunnels all night
long, and were now about to emerge into the morning jungle.
After all the pain and terror and despair, we had made it.

With the light still apparently a long way off down the tun-
nel, Collins stopped again. I began to ask him what the score
was when he kicked me quiet. I heard his Zippo flick open,
and everything went white. As my eyes readjusted, I saw why
we had stopped.

136

Jesse Bullington

The passage ended not a foot in front of Collins. A smooth,
reddish block — wholly out of place in this world of brown
clay — was wedged into the tunnel. A hole no wider than a cig-
arette passed through the block, which was where the light
was coming from. It wasn’t sunlight either, not nearly bright
enough.

Collins looked pretty rough, with blood caked on his chin
and vest. He turned to me and put his index finger to his lips,
the pistol concealing his face. Be quiet. No shit, Sherlock.

The tunnel wasn’t any broader here, but Collins was small
enough that he could swivel around in a fetal position after
giving me the lighter, getting his feet in front of him. He
clicked the safety off his Colt and pushed at the wall with his
feet. Nothing. Killing the Zippo and pocketing it, I leaned into
Collins as he gave it another go. The block shifted a fraction
of an inch. With a groan, Collins heaved again, and the block
moved another half-foot.

Light now trickled in from all four sides of the block. A
final kick made it topple forward. Collins scooted into the
light. He slid down a little way into what must have been a
deeper, wider tunnel beyond the one that had brought us
there, though I couldn’t see any details yet. The back of
Collins’ head was in the way.

Suddenly Collins yelled, “Don’t move, motherfucker!”

My gorge rose. We weren’t alone anymore. Shit.

I nervously crawled to the end of the hole and stopped,
paralyzed with awe. Not only were we not outside, we weren’t
in another tunnel, either. Stretching out above and below me
lay an ornate temple, lit with several long candles that cast an
unnatural amount of brightness on the room. The ceiling had
clearly been carved from the clay, but the four walls all looked
like they were made up of blocks similar to the one we had
dislodged. The floor below my perch gleamed black and yel-
low, covered in a thin coating of moss.

I wanted to examine the carved ceiling and what appeared
to be a shrine set against the opposite wall, but Collins and
his new friend quickly reclaimed my attention. The man wore
yellow robes, and stood in the center of the room. He looked
old, like ancient fucking old, and rather amused at the pistol
being waved in his face by the furious Irishman. It seemed
ridiculous, but we’d apparently managed to bust out into the
church of some weird gook god.

“David,” Collins yelped, his back to me. “David, get down
here! Oh shit, don’t you fuckin’ move, you fuck.”

I tried clambering down, but slipped and fell, cracking my

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137

shoulder painfully. The moss felt soft and nice, though, and I
wanted sleep more than anything in the world, but Collins’
boot persuaded me to rise once more. I got up, supporting
myself on the loose block I’d narrowly avoided braining myself
on.

“Oh, man,” Collins said, “what the fuck is this, what the
fuck?”

I looked up again at the images etched in the clay ceiling.
It was like I couldn’t help myself. They were kind of a cross
between a sculpture and a picture, weird spirals of black clay
rearing out of the smooth earth to form miniature people and
less identifiable creatures. The detail seemed flawless, right
down to the ribbons of drool hanging from the teeth of the
monstrosities that tore their way free of the clay. My heart
beat wildly, and I had to remind myself to breathe.

Then I looked to the shrine — a tiny spring encircled by
clay beasts. The spring bubbled out a pathetic stream of black
water. The run-off was carried along some tiles into a fungus-
coated stone pipe, an aqueduct. Scrawled over the hole where
the pipe left the room were a bunch of odd letters, not
Vietnamese or Cambodian, but characters from some older,
weirder alphabet.

Other than the way we had come and the aqueduct, there
seemed to be no exits from the room.

My canteen was dry, so I made my way to the shrine on
shaky legs. The idea to do so came to me suddenly, and
seemed like a really good one. When I got close, I saw that the
spring was only able to sustain the small pool. The run-off
barely made it a few feet down the tunnel before moss sopped
it up. As I bent to drink, Collins got agitated.

“Hey — hey! What’re you doing?” he stammered. “Get the
fuck away from there!”

I paused, looking back at Collins and the old man. The
geezer had turned so that I could see he was still smiling, but
I got real confused then, because I realized that the old guy
was about as Charles as me or Collins. He looked — I dunno,
Middle-Eastern, maybe — because of his long beard. His scalp
was shaved smooth, but it looked like his head was covered
by faded tattoos or something — the skin all blue and splotchy.
He had the palest green eyes, almost white, and those eyes
kept staring at me as if I were the only other person in the
room, as if Collins and his gun didn’t exist.

“Drink,” the old man said, his English clear and precise,
despite an almost German accent.

At this, Collins flipped his shit.

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Jesse Bullington

“You fuck,” he babbled. “You’re helpin’ us — U.S. Marines,
understand? Get us outta here, you — you — hey, how many of
you bastards are down here? What the fuck is goin’ on, what
is this shit, what is this?”

“Relax,” the old man said. “Drink. Sit. You are my guests.”

As he said this, his eyes sparkled, and I moved away from
the pool toward Collins.

“Relax?” Collins shook, wired on fear and confusion.
“Dude, you got no fuckin’ idea what we been through — what
we saw — so shut the fuck up!”

“It’s been such a long time,” the old man continued, ignor-
ing Collins, “since I’ve had company. Rest a while.”

The old man’s tranquility must have been contagious,
because Collins calmed right down. “Look,” he said, his finger
easing off the trigger, “how do we get out? That’s all we want.”

The old man didn’t answer, but his smile broadened. He
turned his back on Collins, and went toward the spring.
Collins, pissed at the brush off but no longer raging, walked
after him. I watched anxiously, feeling lost and tired.

“Hey, you old gook,” Collins said. “I said you’re gonna help
us.” And at this the geezer spun around. He didn’t look so frail
anymore, and his beard stirred as if a wind brushed it, only I
felt no wind.

“I am no ‘gook’, you wretched Western slug,” he intoned,
his smile gone, “I care not for your petty squabbling, and will
not pick sides in your hollow wars. I did not help the others
when they came, and I will not help you.” And he turned away
to kneel before the spring.

I felt sick, not just tired or scared, but one hundred per-
cent, death’s- door ill. So I gazed back up at the ceiling, trying
to find a familiar, comforting image among the strange gods.
Collins kept pressing though, advancing on the old man; like
I said, he never did know when to shut the fuck up. “What
others — the V.C.?” he said. “Where are they? When were they
here?”

“When they built that tunnel, they came through the wall.
After that, they all left. Most, anyway. There are still a few, I
think, in here somewhere,” he looked slowly around the walls
of the temple, as if peering through the blocks or at something
invisible to us.

Removing a clay cup from his robe, he filled it with the
dark water. He offered this to Collins, who finally lowered his
gun. I was relieved by that. The last thing I wanted was for
Collins to shoot the old man. I didn’t really know why.

“Came through the wall?” Collins asked, sipping the water.

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139

“They came through,” the old man said, “by chance,
when they were excavating a tunnel system to hide from you
crusaders.”

“Crusaders?” Collins snorted, finishing his water and
handing me the cup. “We’re USMC, not King Arthur’s fuckin’
knights.”

“Wait a second,” I said, bending back down to refill the cup.
“You said they came through the wall. So you were already
here. If they built the tunnel, how did you get down here?”

“Yeah,” Collins seconded, moving around the side of the
pool. He squinted at something I couldn’t see, so I turned away
and put the cup to my lips. Sipping the water, I found it to be
the sweetest I’d had since home. A little thick, but definitely
refreshing.

“I read of a spring in the jungles a long time ago,” the old
man said, “a small creek mentioned in an ancient tome. Many
years had passed since the book was penned, and many more
passed before I found the stream. By the time I’d arrived, it
had dwindled to a miniscule trickle in the hills, which I fol-
lowed down into the earth, until I located its source.” He
waved his spindly arm at the pool before us.

Collins had reached the wall and, ducking down, leaned
over the shrine to look down the aqueduct pipe.

“Hot damn,” Collins said excitedly, “bet we could follow
this all the way out!”

I looked apprehensively at the narrow exit. If possible, it
seemed even smaller than the last two tunnels. But I’d spent
more then enough time down in that damn temple, or what-
ever the hell it was.

“Yes,” the old man said, his smile reappearing. “Yes, that
leads to the surface.”

“Aha!” yelped Collins. He snatched a small leather bag
he’d spotted in a crevice by the pool, then tossed it to me. The
weight of the thing nearly bowled me over. Collins was waving
his gun around again, and for the first time I began to ques-
tion his sanity. We should not fuck with the old man; that
seemed obvious.

“What’s in there?” Collins hooted. “If it’s supplies or food,
it’s ours!”

My guts began to thrash around again, and I bent to open
the bag. Just as my fingers undid the complex knot, the old
man appeared over me, and for no reason I can name, I
silently handed him back the bag. But as he took the offering,
I distinctly felt movement from the satchel, the leather pushed
violently outward by something inside.

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Jesse Bullington

“What the shit!” Collins gasped. “David, what the fuck is
your problem?”

“We don’t need it,” I whispered, staring at the pulsating bag.

“What the fuck is in it?”

“Nothing to help you,” the old man said. “Old books. They’ll
do the likes of you no good at all.”

“Books?” Collins demanded. “Lets see them.”

“There is nothing in them that will allow you to live to see
the sunrise,” the old man said, and even though I could no
longer bring myself to look at his face, I knew he still smiled.

“What?” Collins screeched. “What? Fuck you!”

And Collins — nice, funny, a little dumb but okay Collins —
emptied his clip into the old man.

I felt paralyzed, watching him jab his gun into the geezer’s
robes and blast away. But nothing happened. We all stood
still for a moment, silent, waiting. Then Collins dropped his
Colt, which skipped away off the moss.

The old man turned to Collins, who looked back at him.
Collins even met his gaze — for about a minute. Then he col-
lapsed, wailing and pulling at the old man’s robes. As he
bowed before the geezer, whispering apologies through his
sobs, the man looked to me again, and tiy as I might to look
away, I found myself peering into those treacherous green eyes
of his.

He spun away, depositing his satchel back in the nook
and striding to the block we’d knocked down. Then he began
to mumble and chant. I hurried to Collins, who was still shak-
ing and moaning, and splashed water onto this face. He
looked pale and fever ridden, but he came to his senses
enough for us to get our shit together. Retrieving his gun, I
ejected the spent clip, found some extra rounds, reloaded it,
and tucked it into my belt.

I turned back to the old man, who once more faced us.
With stomach-turning horror I realized that the half-ton block
was back in place, sealing the room. Collins had stopped cry-
ing, but when he looked at that block, I thought he might start
up again.

The old man towered over us, and I knew the true mean-
ing of fear. Not the fear that compels the feet to action; but a
fear of such magnitude that awe or madness or worship can
be the only possible responses to it. This was the fear of God
that I had never known. Real terror confronted us in that
instant, in the guise of that old man. And when he finally
averted his glare, we knew that he owned us, and that, for the
moment, he was a merciful master.

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141

“Go,” he said disgustedly.

We fled — not out of fright, but out of respect. We walked
slowly to the pipe, our eyes fastened on the old man’s robes.
The farther we moved away from him, the more our wonder
turned to dread. Finally, we panicked. As I’m bigger, I man-
aged to push in front and began scrambling with maddened
intensity down the narrow confines of the aqueduct.

I should’ve been too tired to move, let alone pull myself by
my fingertips over miles of jagged stone, but I moved with a
speed bordering on the supernatural. Our flight must have
lasted many hours, but I can barely remember it. Once I must
have slept, as Collins woke me with a pinch to the ankle.
Sometime later I shit myself, the rancid smell an unwelcome
reminder of the thing in the tunnel.

Finally, after losing three fingernails and a boot, I found
the rock giving way to clay, and knew we’d made it. The tun-
nel grew wider, opening into a cave that the aqueduct passed
through. The incline leveled off as the night sky came into
view up ahead, revealed to us through gaps in the vines that
dangled over the cave mouth. Grabbing Collins by the arm, I
started to run forward, laughing as I approached freedom. If
only I’d thought to use Collins’ Zippo, we might have made it.

I didn’t even feel the first few strikes, and had collapsed to
my knees before I understood what had happened. Collins
stepped back screaming, and went down hard. The moonlight
barely reached us in the back of the cave, but I could see well
enough to know I was fucked. Cobras, dozens of ’em, rearing
at me out of the darkness, long fangs sinking in and ripping
out, over and over and over.

It didn’t sting so much as burn, my whole body incinerat-
ing from the inside. I felt the snakes writhing underneath me,
the fire growing and growing, and they didn’t stop. They were
all over me, fat coils of scales rubbing, hoods flaring, and the
noise — the shick, shick, shick of snake sliding on snake — and
the screams . . .

After a time, they stopped biting. Every few minutes one
would experimentally strike at a twitching limb, but the
onslaught had ended. I should die, I thought, any second the
fire will cool, and I can rest — sleep — die. But I didn’t. The burn-
ing intensified, the sickness so bad I could feel my skin crack
and ooze as the venom rotted me alive.

Then I remembered the Colt.

It took me a spell to jam my bloated finger into the trigger
guard, and as I raised it, the gun went off. At this the snakes
under and on me were striking and thrashing again, but I

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Jesse Bullington

couldn’t care less. In the cave’s dimness, I could see Collins’
serpent-covered body still convulsing a few feet away, could
hear his whimpers, soft but clear. I couldn’t get up, so from
where I lay I put five round into Collins’ back, then put the
barrel in my own mouth and pulled the trigger.

Thum-thump. Sleep. Thum-thump. Staring at the ceiling,
can’t sleep. Light enters the cave, snakes everywhere, slither-
ing over and under and through us, out into the sunshine.
Watch the light on the wall through my ruined face, feeling
cold metal in my throat, hearing the damn heartbeat sound,
louder and louder, and I’m dead. But I’m not. Heartbeat get-
ting louder until I can’t think, all I want is to die but I can’t
and it hurts, the fucking thundering heartbeat, and I’m claw-
ing at my chest, digging through purple layers of poisoned
meat until I find the bastard and put my fingers through it
and tear at it until most of it comes off in my swollen fist and
I squeeze until it’s dribbling gore — and I realize it’s not my
heart that’s making all the racket. Now I’m moving, ripping at
Collins’ breast, and he’s pushing me away, saying, “Get offa
me, get offa me.”

I find his heart, the bullet holes making it easy, and I
crush the fat, warm thing and I still fucking hear that thum-
thump, thum-thump, and Collins’ moans, “Lie down, we’re
dead, we’re dead,” and the burning’s only gotten worse, and I
watch the light dying away, but the snakes don’t come back,
only the stars.

“You still awake, David?” Collins asks. I try to answer, but
my jaw’s blown off, so I only gurgle up blood.

“Reister,” Collins whispers after a while, and the starlight
glimmers just like the old man’s eyes, and I can see fine, even
though I’m dead. The burning’s finally cooling, but the noise is
getting worse with every second. It takes some work, some real
fucking work, but I conjure up Reister’s face — Reister’s
damned, damning face — and I remember. Even though it hurts,
I remember.

Moving makes it a little better, even though the thum-
thump is even louder out in the grass on the hilltop, but me
and Collins are soldiers again, and even with my legs all drip-
ping and soft I run so fast, so damn fast, it’s like I’m swimming
through the jungle. I can’t hear anything but the heartbeat,
coming from everything, from everywhere, getting louder and
louder, and we find their footprints, and it’s so easy, so many
footprints. Collins says things, and I want to answer, but I
can’t, and “Besides,” he says, “they’ll be able to kill us for
sure, definitely, fuckin’ A.”

Charlie’s Hole

143

Then the jungle stops, and the thum-thump, thum-thump
is so loud my ears rupture and bleed, and Collins is scream-
ing. Frank, big Frank never liked us much, and Collins is on
him — heh, some guard — and Frank is screaming, too, as he
drops his gun and falls under Collins.

Soldiers everywhere, flares blinding me all around, but
the thum-thump is worse, so terrible it hurts more than any
bullet. Then he’s right there, all three hundred pounds of
throbbing fat and muscle: Reister. I want to show him, to lead
him down through the tunnels to behold sights unseen by liv-
ing men, so he can know, so he can understand. But watch-
ing him trip as he turns to run, shoving one of his terrified
men between us, I know he already does: better him than you,
after all, eh, Reister? Loyalty? Courage? Honor? Bullshit.
Survival. Blood, under their fingernails or yours. Thum-
thump. We run together, me and Reister, and then I’m on him,
and then he’s wide open, his guts unspooling into my arms in
the grass under the stars, and the heartbeat gets a tiny bit
softer, and it’s fucking glorious. . . .

The Dead Kid

DARRELL SCHWEITZER

It’s been a lot of years, but I think I’m still afraid of Luke
Bradley, because of what he showed me.

I knew him in the first grade, and he was a tough guy even
then, the sort of kid who would sit on a tack and insist it
didn’t hurt, and then get you to sit on the same tack (which
definitely did hurt) because you were afraid of what he’d do if
you didn’t. Once he found a bald-faced hornets’ nest on a tree
branch, broke it off, and ran yelling down the street, waving
the branch around and around until, finally, the nest fell off
and the hornets came out like a cloud. Nobody knew what
happened after that because the rest of us had run away.

We didn’t see Luke in school for a couple days afterward,
so I suppose he got stung rather badly. When he did show up,
he was his old self and beat up three other boys in one after-
noon. Two of them needed stitches.

When I was about eight, the word went around the neigh-
borhood that Luke Bradley had been eaten by a werewolf.
“Come on,” said Tommy Hitchens, Luke’s current sidekick.
“I’ll show you what’s left of him. Up in a tree.”

I didn’t believe any werewolf would have been a match for
Luke Bradley, but I went. When Tommy pointed out the
alleged remains of the corpse up in the tree, I could tell even
from a distance that I was looking at a T-shirt and a pair of
blue jeans stuffed with newspapers.

I said so and Tommy flattened me with a deft right hook,
which broke my nose and my glasses.

The next day, Luke was in school as usual, though I had
a splint on my nose. When he saw me, he called me a “pussy”
and kicked me in the balls.

Already he was huge, probably a couple of years older
than the rest of the class. Though he never admitted it, every-
body knew he’d been held back in every grade at least once,
even kindergarten.

But he wasn’t stupid. He was crazy. That was the fasci-
nation of hanging out with him, even if you could get hurt in
his company. He did wild things that no one else dared even
think about. There was the stunt with the hornets’ nest, or
the time he picked up fresh dog-shit in both his bare hands

The Dead Kid

145

and claimed he was going to eat it right in front of us, before
everybody got grossed out and ran because we were afraid he
was going to make us do it. Maybe he really did eat it. He was
just someone for whom the rules, all the rules, simply did not
apply. That he was usually in detention, and had been picked
up by the police several times, only added to his mystique.

And in the summer when I was twelve, Luke Bradley
showed me the dead kid.

Things had progressed quite a bit since the hornets’ nest.
No one quite believed all the stories of Luke’s exploits, though
he would beat the crap out of you if you questioned them to
his face. Had he really stolen a car? Did he really hang onto
the outside of a P&W light-rail train and ride all the way into
Philadelphia without getting caught?

Nobody knew, but when he said to me and to my ten-year-
old brother Albert, “Hey, you two scuzzes — ” scuzz being his
favorite word of the moment “ — there’s a dead kid in Cabbage
Creek Woods. Wanna see?” It wasn’t really a question.

Albert tried to turn away, and said, “David, I don’t think
we should,” but I knew what was good for us.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure we want to see.”

Luke was already more than a head taller than either of
us and fifty pounds heavier. He was cultivating the “hood”
image from some hand-me-down memory of James Dean or
Elvis, with his hair up in a greasy swirl and a black leather
jacket worn even on hot days, when he kept his shirt unbut-
toned so he could show off that he already had chest hair.

A cigarette dangled from his lips. He blew smoke in my
face. I strained not to cough.

“Well, come on, then,” he said. “It’s really cool.”

So we followed him, along with a kid called Animal, and
another called Spike — the beginnings of Luke’s “gang,” with
which he said he was going to make himself famous one day.
My little brother tagged after us, reluctantly at first, but then
as fascinated as I was to be initiated into this innermost, for-
bidden secret of the older, badder set.

Luke had quite a sense of showmanship. He led us under
bushes, crawling through natural tunnels under vines and
dead trees where, when we were smaller, we’d had our own
secret hideouts, as, I suppose, all children do. Luke and his
crowd were getting too big for that sort of thing, but they went
crashing through the underbrush like bears. I was small and
skinny enough. David was young enough. In fact, it was all we
could do to keep up.

With a great flourish, Luke raised a vine curtain and we

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emerged into the now half-abandoned Radnor Golf Course. It
was an early Saturday morning. Mist was still rising from the
poorly tended greens. I saw one golfer, far away. Otherwise,
we had the world to ourselves.

We ran across the golf course, then across Lancaster Pike,
then up the hill and back into the woods on the other side.

I only thought for a minute, Hey, wait a minute ; we’re
going to see a corpse — a kid like us, only dead. . . . But, as I
said, for Luke Bradley or even with him, all rules were sus-
pended, and I knew better than try to ask what the kid died
of, because we’d see soon enough.

In the woods again, by secret and hidden ways, we came
to the old “fort,” which had probably been occupied by gener-
ations of boys by then, though of course right now it belonged
to the Luke Bradley Gang.

I don’t know who built the fort or why. It was a rectangle
of raised earth and piled stone, with logs laid across for a roof,
and vines growing thickly over the whole thing so that from a
distance it just looked like a hillock or knoll. That was part of
its secret. You had to know it was there.

And only Luke, being the current owner, could let you in.

He raised another curtain of vines, and with a sweep of his
hand and a bow said, “Welcome to my house, you assholes.”

Spike and Animal laughed while Albert and I got down on
our hands and knees, and crawled inside.

Immediately I almost gagged on the awful smell, like rot-
ten garbage and worse. Albert started to cough. I though he
was going to throw up. But before I could say or do anything,
Luke and his two henchmen had come in after us, and we all
crowded around a pit in the middle of the dirt floor. The pit
didn’t use to be there. Now there was a four-foot drop, a
roughly square cavity, and in the middle of that, a cardboard
box that was clearly the source of the unbelievable stench.

Luke got out a flashlight, then reached down and opened
the box.

“It’s a dead kid. I found him in the woods in this box. He’s
mine.”

I couldn’t help but look. It was indeed a dead kid, an ema-
ciated, pale thing, naked but for what might have been the
remains of filthy underpants, lying on its side in a fetal posi-
tion, little clawlike hands bunched up under its chin.

“A dead kid,” said Luke. “Really cool.”

Then Albert really was throwing up and screaming at the
same time, and scrambling to get out of there, only Animal
and then Spike had him by the back of his shirt the way you

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147

pick up a kitten by the scruff of its neck, and they passed him
back to Luke, who held his head in his hands and forced him
down into that pit, saying, “Now look at it, you fucking pussy
faggot.” This because it was really cool.

Albert was sobbing and sniffling when Luke let him go,
but he didn’t try to run, nor did I, even when Luke got a stick
and poked the dead kid with it.

“This is the best part,” he said.

We didn’t run away then because we had to watch, just to
convince ourselves that we weren’t crazy, because of what we
were seeing.

Luke poked and the dead kid moved, spasming at first,
then grabbing at the stick feebly, and finally crawling around
inside the box like a slow, clumsy animal, just barely able to
turn, scratching at the cardboard with bony fingertips.

“What is he?” I had to ask.

“A zombie ,” said Luke.

“Aren’t zombies supposed to be black?”

“You mean like a nigger?” That was another of Luke’s
favorite words that year. He called everybody “nigger” no mat-
ter what color they were.

“Well, you know — voodoo. In Haiti, and all that.”

As we spoke the dead kid reared up and almost got out of
the box. Luke poked him in the forehead with his stick and
knocked him down.

“I suppose if we let him rot long enough he’ll be black
enough even for you.”

The dead kid stared up at us and made a bleating sound.
The worst thing of all was that he didn’t have any eyes, only
huge sockets and an oozy mess inside them.

Albert was sobbing for his mommy by then, and after a
while of poking and prodding the dead kid, Luke and his
friends got tired of that sport. Luke turned to me and said,
“You can go now, but you know if you or your piss-pants
brother tell about this, I’ll kill you both and put you in there
for the dead kid to eat.”

II

I can’t remember much of what Albert and I did for the rest
of that day. We ran through the woods, tripped, fell flat on our
faces in a stream. Then, later, we were walking along the old
railroad embankment, turning over ties to look for snakes, and
all the while Albert was babbling on about the dead kid and
how we had to do something. I just let him talk until he got it

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all out of him. Then we went home for dinner and were very
quiet when Mom and our stepdad, Steve, tried to find out
what we had been doing all day.

“Just playing,” I said. “In the woods.”

“It’s good for them to be outdoors,” Steve said to Mom. ‘Too
many kids spend all their time in from of the TV watching
unwholesome junk these days. I’m glad our kids are normal ”

But Albert ended up screaming in his sleep for weeks and
wetting his bed, and things were anything but normal that
summer. He was the one with the obvious problems. He was
the one who ended up going to a specialist, and whatever he
said in therapy must not have been believed, because the
police didn’t go tearing up Cabbage Creek Woods, Luke
Bradley and his neanderthals were not arrested, and I was
more or less left alone.

In fact, I had more unsupervised time than usual. And I
used it to work out problems of my own, like why I hated
school and why I hated Stepdad Steve for the sanctimonious
prig that he was. I decided, with the full wisdom of my twelve
years and some months, that if I was to survive in this rough,
tough, evil world, I was going to have to become tough myself,
bad, and very likely evil.

I decided that Luke Bradley had the answers.

So I sought him out. It wasn’t hard. He had a knack for
being in the right place at the right time when any kid in town
was ready to sell his soul, just like the Devil.

I met him in front of the Wayne Toy Town, where I used to
go to buy model kits and stuff. I still liked building models,
and doing scientific puzzles, though I would never admit it to
Luke Bradley.

So I just froze when I saw him there.

“Well, well,” he said. “If it ain’t the little pussy scuzz.” He
blew smoke from the perennial cigarette.

“Hello, Luke,” I said. I nodded to his companions, who
included Spike, Animal, and a virtually hairless, pale gorilla
who went by the unlikely name of Corky. As I spoke, I slipped
my latest purchase into my shoulder bag and hoped he didn’t
notice.

Corky grabbed me by the back of the neck and said,
“Whaddaya want me to do with him?”

But before Luke could respond, I said, “Hey, have you still
got the dead kid at the fort?”

They all hesitated. They weren’t expecting that.

“Well, he’s cool,” I said. “I want to see him again.”

“Okay,” said Luke.

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149

We didn’t have any other way to get there, so we walked,
about an hour, to Cabbage Creek Woods. Luke dispensed with
ceremony. We just crawled into the fort and gathered around
the pit.

The smell, if anything, was worse.

This time, the dead kid was already moving around inside
the box. When Luke opened the cardboard flaps, the dead kid
stood up, with his horrible, pus-filled eye sockets staring. He
made that bleating, groaning sound again. He clawed at the
edge of the box.

“Really cool,” I forced myself to say, swallowing hard.

“I can make him do tricks,” said Luke. “Watch this.”

I watched as he shoved his finger through the skin under
the dead kid’s chin and lifted him up like a hooked fish out of
the pit. The dead kid scrambled over the edge of the box, then
crouched down on the dirt floor at the edge of the pit, staring
into space.

Luke passed his hand slowly in front of the dead kid’s face.
He snapped his fingers. The dead kid didn’t respond. Luke
smacked him on the side of the head. The dead kid whimpered
a little, and made that bleating sound.

“Everybody outside,” Luke said.

So we all crawled out, and then Luke reached back inside
with a stick and touched the dead kid, who came out, too,
clinging to the stick, trying to chew on it, but not quite co-
ordinated enough, so that he just snapped his teeth in the air
and rubbed the side of his face along the stick.

I could see him clearly now. He really was rotten, with
bone sticking out at his knees and elbows, only scraggly patch-
es of dark hair left on his head, every rib showing in hideous
relief on his bare back, and holes through his skin between
some of them.

“Look!” said Luke. “Look at him dance!” He swirled the
stick around and around, and the dead kid clung to it, stag-
gering in a circle.

Corky spoke up. “Ya think ifn he gets dizzy he’ll puke?”

Luke yanked the stick out of the dead kid’s hands, then hit
him hard with it across the back with a thwack! The dead kid
dropped to all fours and just stayed there, his head hanging
down.

“Can’t puke. Got no guts left!” They all laughed at that. I
didn’t quite get the joke.

Despite everything, I tried to get the joke, despite even the
incongruity that I really was, like it or not, a more or less “nor-
mal” kid and right now I had a model kit for a plastic Fokker

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Triplane in my schoolbag. I still wanted to measure up to Luke
Bradley, for all that I was more afraid of him than I had ever
been. I figured you had to be afraid of what you did and who
you hung out with if you were going to be really bad. You did
what Luke did. That was what transgression was all about.

So I unzipped my fly and pissed on the dead kid. He made
that bleating sound. The others chuckled nervously. Luke
grinned.

“Pretty cool, Davey, my boy. Pretty cool.”

Then Luke started to play the role of wise elder brother.
He put his arm around my shoulders. He took me a little ways
apart from the others and said, “I like you. I think you got
something special in there.” He rapped on my head with his
knuckles, hard, but I didn’t flinch away.

Then he led me back to the others and said, “I think we’re
gonna make David here a member of the gang.”

So we all sat down in the clearing with the dead kid in our
circle, as if he were one of the gang, too. Luke got out an old
briefcase from inside the fort and produced some very crum-
pled nudie magazines and passed them around and we all
looked at the pictures. He even made a big, funny show of
opening out a foldout for the dead kid to admire.

He smoked and passed cigarettes out to all of us. I’d never
had one before and it made me feel sick, but Luke told me to
hold the smoke in, then breathe it out slowly.

I was amazed and appalled when, right in front of every-
one, he unzipped his pants and started to jerk off. The others
did it, too, making a point of trying to squirt on the dead kid.

Luke looked at me. “Come on. Join in with the other gentle-
men.” The other “gentlemen” brayed like jackasses.

I couldn’t move then. I really wanted to be like them, but
I knew I wasn’t going to measure up. All I could hope for now
was to put up a good front so maybe they’d decide I wasn’t a
pussy after all and maybe let me go after they beat me up a
little bit. I could hope for that much.

But Luke had other ideas. He put his hand on the back of
my neck. It could have been a friendly gesture, or, if he
squeezed, he could have snapped my head off, for all I could
have done anything about it.

“Now, David,” he said, “I don’t care if you’ve even got a
dick, any more than I care if he does.” He jerked his thumb at
the dead kid. “But if you want to join our gang, if you want to
be cool, you have to meet certain standards.”

He flicked a switchblade open right in front of my face. I
thought he was going to cut my nose with it, but with a sudden

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151

motion, he slashed the dead kid’s nose right off. It flew into the
air. Corky caught it, then threw it away in mindless disgust.

The dead kid whimpered. His face was a black, oozing
mess.

Then Luke took hold of my right hand and slashed the
back of it. I let out a yell, and tried to stop the bleeding with
my other hand.

“No,” Luke said. “Let him lick it. He needs a little blood
now and then to keep him healthy.”

I screamed then, and sobbed, and whimpered the way
Albert had that first time, but Luke held onto me with a grip
so strong that I was the one who wriggled like a fish on a line,
and he held my cut hand out to the dead kid.

I couldn’t look, but something soft and wet touched my
hand. I could only think, Oh God, what kind of infection or dis-
ease am I going to get from this ?

“Okay, David,” Luke said then. “You’re doing just fine, but
there is one more test. You have to spend the whole night in
the fort with the dead kid. We’ve all done it. Now it’s your
turn.”

They didn’t wait for my answer, but, laughing, hauled me
back inside the fort. Then Luke had the dead kid hooked
under the chin again, and lowered him down into his box in
the pit.

The others crawled back outside. Before he left, Luke
turned to me: “You have to stay here until tomorrow morning.
You know what I’ll do to you if you pussy out.”

So I spent the rest of the afternoon, and the evening,
inside that fort, with the dead kid scratching around in his
box. It was already dark in the fort. I couldn’t tell what time it
was. I couldn’t think very clearly at all. I wondered if anyone
was looking for me. I lay very still. I didn’t want to be found,
especially not by the dead kid, who, for all I knew, could crawl
out of the box and the pit if he really wanted to, and maybe
rip my throat out and drink my blood.

My hand hurt horribly. It seemed to be swelling. I was
sure it was already rotten. The air was thick and foul.

But I stayed where I was — because I was afraid, because I
was weak with nausea, but also, incredibly, because some-
how, somewhere deep down inside myself, I still wanted to
show how tough I was, to be like Luke Bradley, to be as amaz-
ing and crazy as he was. I knew that I wasn’t cut out for this,
and that’s why I wanted it — to be bad, so no one would ever
beat me up again. And if I hated my stepdad or my teachers,
I could just tell them to go fuck off, as Luke would do.

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Hours passed, and still the dead kid circled around and
around inside his cardboard box, sliding against the sides. He
made that bleating, coughing sound, as if he were trying to
talk and didn’t have any tongue left. For a time I thought there
was almost some sense in it, some pattern. He was clicking
like a cricket. This went on for hours. Maybe I even slept for
a while, and fell into a kind of dream in which I was sinking
slowly down into incredibly foul- smelling muck and there
were thousands of bald-faced hornets swarming over me, all
of them with little Luke Bradley faces saying, “Cool . . . really
cool,” until their voices blended together and became a
buzzing, then became wind in the trees, then the roar of a
P&W light-rail train rushing off toward Philadelphia; and the
dead kid and I were hanging onto the outside of the car,
swinging wildly. My arm hit a pole and snapped right off, and
black ooze poured out of my shoulder, and the hornets
swarmed over me, eating me up bit by bit.

Once, I am certain, the dead kid did reach up and touch
me, very gently, running his dry, sharp fingertip down the
side of my cheek, cutting me, then withdrawing with a little
bit of blood and tears on his fingertip, to drink.

But, strangest of all, I wasn’t afraid of him any longer. It
came to me, then, that we two had more in common than not.
We were both afraid and in pain and lost in the dark.

Ill

Then, somehow, it was morning. The sunlight blinded me
when Luke opened the vine curtain over the door.

“Hey. You were really brave. I’m impressed, Davey.”

I let him lead me out of the fort, taking comfort in his
chum/big-brother manner. But I was too much in shock to
say anything.

“You passed the test. You’re one of us,” he said. “Welcome
to the gang. Now there is one last thing for you to do. Not a
test. You’ve passed all the tests. It’s just something we do to
celebrate.”

His goons had gathered once more in the clearing outside
the fort.

One of them was holding a can of gasoline.

I stood there, swaying, about to faint, unable to figure out
what the gasoline was for.

Luke brought the dead kid outside.

Corky poured gasoline over the dead kid, who just bleated
a little and waved his hands in the air.

The Dead Kid 1 53

Luke handed me a cigarette lighter. He flicked it until
there was a flame.

“Go on,” he said. “It’ll be cool.”

But I couldn’t. I was too scared, too sick. I just dropped to
my knees, then onto all fours, and started puking.

So Luke lit the dead kid on fire and the others hooted and
clapped as the dead kid went up like a torch, staggering and
dancing around the clearing, trailing black, oily smoke. Then
he fell down and seemed to shrivel up into a pile of blackened,
smoldering sticks.

Luke forced me over to where the dead kid had fallen, and
made me touch what was left with my swollen hand.

And the dead kid moved. He made that bleating sound. He
whimpered.

“You see? You can’t kill him because he’s already dead.”

They were all laughing, but I just puked again, and finally
Luke hauled me to my feet by both shoulders, turned me
around, and shoved me away, staggering, into the woods.

“Come back when you stop throwing up,” he said.

IV

Somehow I found my way home, and when I did, Mom just
stared at me in horror and said, “My God, what’s that awful
smell?” But Stepdad Steve shook me and demanded to know
where I had been and what I’d been doing? Did I know the
police were looking for me? Did I care? (No, and no.) He took me
into the bathroom, washed and bandaged my hand, then held
me so I couldn’t turn away and said, “Have you been taking
drugs?”

That was so stupid I started to laugh, and he smacked me
across the face, something he rarely did. But this time, I think,
he was determined to beat the truth out of me, and Mommy —
dearest Mommy — didn’t raise a finger to stop him as he laid on
with his hand, then his belt, and I was shrieking my head off.

All they got out of me was the admission that I had been
with Luke Bradley and his friends.

“I don’t want you to associate with those boys any further.
They’re unwholesome.”

He didn’t know a tenth of it, and I started to laugh again,
like I was drunk or something, and he was about to hit me
again when Mom finally made him stop.

She told me to change my clothes and take a bath and
then go to my room. I wasn’t allowed out except for meals and
to go to the bathroom.

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That was fine with me. I didn’t want to come out. I wanted
to bury myself in there, to be quiet and dead, like the dead kid
in his box.

But when I fell asleep, I was screaming in a dream, and I
woke up screaming, in the dark, because it was night again.

Mom looked in briefly, but didn’t say anything. The
expression on her face was more of disgust than concern, as
if she really wanted to say, Serves him damn right, but, oh God,
another crazy kid we’ll have to send to the so, so expensive
psychiatrist and I’d rather spend the money on a new mink
coat or a car or something. . . .

It was my kid brother Albert who snuck over to my bed
and whispered, “It’s the dead kid, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“The dead kid. He talks to me in my dreams. He’s told me
all about himself. He’s lost. His father’s a magician who is still
trying to find him. There was a war between magicians or
something, and that’s how he got lost.”

“Huh? Is this something you read in a comic book?”

“No/ It’s the dead kid. You know what we have to do,
David. We have to go save him.”

I have to give my brother credit for bringing about my moral
redemption as surely as if he’d handed me my sanity back on a
silver platter and said, Go on, don’t be a pussy. Take it.

Because he was right. We had to save the dead kid.

Maybe the dead kid talked to Albert in his dreams, but he
didn’t tell me anything. Why should he?

Still, I’d gotten the message.

So, that night, very late, Albert and I got dressed and
slipped out the window of our room, dropping onto the lawn.
He wasn’t afraid, not a little bit. He led me, by the ritual
route, under the arching bushes, through the tunnels of vines
to all our secret places, as if we had to be in that location first
to gain some special strength for the task at hand.

Under the bushes, in the darkness, we paused to scratch
secret signs in the dirt.

Then we scurried across the golf course, across the high-
way, into Cabbage Creek Woods.

We came to the fort by the light of a full moon now flick-
ering through swaying branches. It was a windy night. The
woods were alive with sounds of branches creaking and snap-
ping, of animals calling back and forth, and night-birds caw-
ing. Somewhere, very close at hand, an owl cried out.

Albert got down on all fours in the doorway of the fort,
poked his head in, and said, “Hey, dead kid! Are you in there?”

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155

He backed out, and waited. There was a rustling sound,
but the dead kid didn’t come out. So we both crawled in and
saw why. There wasn’t much left of him. He was just a bun-
dle of black sticks, his head like a charred pumpkin balanced
precariously on top. All he could do was sit up weakly and
peer over the side of the box.

So we had to lift him out of the pit, box and all.

“Come on,” Albert said to him. “We want to show you some
stuff.”

We carried the dead kid between us. We took him back
across the golf course, under the bushes, to our special
places. We showed him the secret signs. Then we took him
into town. We showed him the storefronts — Wayne Toy Town
where I bought models, where there were always neat displays
of miniature battlefields or of monsters in the windows. We
showed him where the pet store was and the ice cream store,
and where you got comic books.

Albert sat down on the merry-go-round in the playground,
holding the dead kid’s box securely beside him. I pushed them
around slowly. Metal creaked.

We stood in front of our school for a while, and Albert had
reached into the box, and he and the dead kid were holding
hands, but it seemed natural and right.

Then we went away in the bright moonlight, through the
empty streets. No one said anything, because whatever the
dead kid could say or hear wasn’t in words anyway. I couldn’t
hear it. I think Albert could.

In the end, the dead kid scrambled out of his box. Somehow
he had regained enough strength to walk. Somehow, he was
beginning to heal. In the end, he wanted to show us something.

He led us back across the golf course but away from
Cabbage Creek Woods. We crossed the football field at Radnor
High School, then went across the street, up in back of Wyeth
Labs and across the high bridge over the P&W tracks. I was
afraid the dead kid would slip on the metal stairs and fall, but
he went more steadily than we did. (Albert and I were both a
little afraid of heights.)

He led us across another field, into woods again, then
through an opening where a stream flowed beneath the
Pennsylvania Railroad embankment. We waded ankle-deep in
the chilly water and came, at last, to the old Grant Estate, a
huge ruin of a Victorian house, which every kid knew was
haunted, which our parents told us to stay away from because
it was dangerous. (We’d all heard a hundred times about kids
murdered by tramps or falling through floors.) But now it

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wasn’t a min at all — no broken windows, no holes in the roof.
Every window blazed with light.

From a high window in a tower, a man in black gazed
down at us.

The dead kid looked up at him, then began to run.

I hurried after him. Now it was Albert (who had better
sense) who hung back. I caught hold of the dead kid’s arm, as
if to stop him. I felt possessive for a moment, as if I owned him
the way Luke Bradley had owned him.

“Hey, dead kid,” I said. “Where are you going?”

He turned to me, and by some trick of the moonlight he
seemed to have a face — pale, round, with dark eyes; and he
said to me in that bleating, croaking voice of his, actually
forming words for once, “My name is Jonathan.”

That was the only thing he ever said to me. He never talked
to me in dreams.

He went to the front of the house. The door opened. The
light within seemed to swallow him. He turned back, briefly,
and looked at us. I don’t think he was just a bundle of sticks
anymore.

Then he was gone and all the lights blinked out, and it
was dawn. My brother and I stood before a ruined mansion in
the morning twilight. Birds were singing raucously.

“We’d better get home,” Albert said, “or we’ll get in trouble.”

“Yeah,” I said.

V

That autumn, I began junior high school. Because I hadn’t
been very successful as a bad boy, and my grades were still a
lot higher, I wasn’t in any of Luke Bradley’s classes. But he
caught up with me in the locker room after school, several
weeks into the term. All he said was, “I know what you did,”
and beat me so badly that he broke several of my ribs and one
arm, and smashed in the whole side of my face, cracking the
socket around my right eye. He stuffed me into a locker and
left me there to die, and I spent the whole night in the dark-
ness, in great pain, amid horrible smells, calling out for the
dead kid to come and save me as I’d saved him. I made bleat-
ing, clicking sounds.

But he didn’t come. The janitor found me in the morning.
The smell was merely that I’d crapped in my pants.

I spent several weeks in the hospital, and afterward
Stepdad Steve and Mom decided to move out of the state. They
put both me and Albert in a prep school.

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157

It was only after I got out of college that I went back to
Radnor Township in Pennsylvania, where I’d grown up.
Everything was changed. There was a Sears headquarters
where the golf course used to be. Our old house had vanished
beneath an apartment parking lot. Most of Cabbage Creek
Woods had been cut down to make room for an Altman’s
department store, and the Grant Estate was gone, too, to make
room for an office complex.

I didn’t go into the remaining woods to see if the fort was
still there.

I imagine it is. I imagine other kids own it now.

Later someone told me that Luke Bradley, who turned out
to have really been three years older than me, had been
expelled from high school, then committed several robberies
in the company of his three goons, and that all of them had
been killed in a shootout with the police.

What Luke Bradley inadvertently showed me was that I
could have been with them, if Albert and the dead kid, whose
name was Jonathan, hadn’t saved me.

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes:

A Love Sto ry

JIM C. HINES

When I met Bissa, she was selling brainburgers and bile
shakes at horribly inflated prices.

I had more than blown my meal allowance from work, pay-
ing twenty-plus bucks for gray beef patties, a green milkshake,
and watered- down ketchup. I didn’t care. I kept going back to
the counter, finding one excuse after another to talk to her,
even if our conversation was less than romantic.

“Is something wrong with your brainburger?” she asked
when I returned yet again.

I probably sounded like a zombie myself as I unknotted
my tongue enough to stammer, “It’s delicious.”

She stared at me, waiting. Behind her, other employees of
the ZombieLand Snack Shack scurried about, swapping bas-
kets in the deep fryer and wrapping uniformly gray meat prod-
ucts in wax paper. The man with the Manager badge even
adopted an exaggerated limp, mimicking the slow shuffle of
the walking dead as he went from table to table.

Of course, the Snack Shack was one of the few places in
ZombieLand where actual zombies were forbidden. The health
inspectors would shut down the whole park if a zombie came
within twenty feet of the restaurant.

The employees all wore the same uniform, but only Bissa
made it beautiful. A blue cap hid her hair, except for a long,
sleek braid. The embroidered blood splatters on her shirt
highlighted the green of her eyes. Her skin was smooth and
tan. She wore no makeup. Her small mouth quirked on one
side.

“Sir?” She gestured at the line behind me. “Was there any-
thing you needed, sir?”

“Jack. Jack Young.” I peeked at the backlit menu behind
her. “Um . . . the ribs sound good. How large is your child’s
portion?”

She held her hands about a foot apart, and my stomach
gurgled in protest. In the past hour and a half, I had already
eaten enough for three men.

“That seems like a lot.”

159

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes

One plucked eyebrow rose. “Listen, Jack Young, I don’t
know how small children are where you’re from, but here in
Nevada, this is the width of an average child’s rib cage.”

I stammered something about how I wasn’t that hungry
and glanced back at the menu. Only then did she break into
a grin. She reached over the counter to squeeze my shoulder.
“Gullible, aren’t you? The kids meal is three pork riblets, a
mini- shake, and a toy.”

A more suave man would have replied with an amusing
repartee, something to make her flash that smile again. I
opened my mouth, hesitated, and mumbled that I would take
the kid’s ribs.

My meal came in a plastic bucket shaped like a human
head. I popped the scalp off and removed the toy — a plastic
green block with a gravestone at one end.

Bissa took it from my hand and set it on the counter. “Like
this,” she said, pressing the gravestone. A tiny, two-dimen-
sional zombie popped up from the grass.

“Cute.”

Another long silence. She seemed to be waiting for some-
thing. My face got hot again. An exasperated father tapped my
shoulder before I could speak.

“Are you finished? My kids are waiting for their finger-on-
a- stick treats.”

“Sorry.” I dropped the toy into my plastic head and
retreated to my seat. There, I watched Bissa’s hands move as
she took the next order. She had long, graceful fingers with
black nail polish.

I turned away, afraid she would catch me staring.

The whole place smelled like grease. It even overpowered
the smell of rotting zombie that hung over the whole of
ZombieLand.

Looking out the window, I watched a group of handlers
lead a parade of zombies through the street, between lines of
cheering kids and weary parents. Several zombies banged on
bongos, their desiccated hands slapping the only instruments
the walking dead could master. Two men with brooms and
dustbins followed, scooping up fallen bits of flesh.

When I glanced at the counter again, Bissa was watching
me. I managed to smile and prayed my teeth were reasonably
rib -free.

Twenty minutes later, she came to my table and asked me

out.

+ + +

160

Jim C. Hines

We met in the Mortuary Theater. I spotted Bissa sitting in
an aisle seat in Row F. I handed my ticket to an attendant and
hurried to join her.

“You’re late,” she said.

“I went to Sepulcher Stage by mistake,” I said, still breath-
ing hard from the run. I was sweating, and the sun beating
down on the open theater didn’t help. I hoped I didn’t sweat
through my shirt. “This place is a maze. How long did you
work here before you learned where everything was?”

She smiled and tapped her temple. “Photographic memory.
I memorized the map on my first day.”

Feeling stupider by the minute, I nodded and pretended to
watch the show. A zombie dressed in black velvet trimmed
with gold thread trotted across the stage. A silver-hilted rapier
hung from his belt. Not a real one, of course — federal regs, and
all that.

A second zombie carried a shovel onto the stage and pre-
tended to dig. The audience chuckled at the irony of a zombie
gravedigger. The first zombie stepped forward and picked up
a withered, blond-haired head.

“Alas, poor Yorick,” a voice said. It was supposedly the
zombie speaking in a cultured British accent, but that was
impossible since his lips were missing and a poorly mended
rip split his cheek. His mouth wasn’t even moving. The pre-
recorded dialogue came from speakers mounted above the
stage.

“The head used to play Hamlet,” Bissa whispered. “His
body got torn up in the riots last year, so they decided to use
him for Yorick. Cheaper than paying disposal fees, I guess.”

Yorick’s mouth was in better condition. His lips moved
almost in synch with the speakers. “Ach, Hamlet, you’ve
caught me at a bad time. I was about to go to the head.”

A collective groan from the audience.

Before Hamlet could reply, the speakers squealed and
died. The audience muttered as a woman in black Kevlar
walked to the front of the stage. She had a ZombieLand patch
on her shoulder.

Behind her, similarly dressed men used steel poles to loop
plastic rings around the zombies’ necks and lead them away.
In the case of poor Yorick, they used a shovel.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the interrup-
tion.” The woman spoke in a calm voice tinged with a hint of
a Southern accent. “Federal law requires us to hold occa-
sional drills to make sure ZombieLand is prepared in case of
an emergency.”

161

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes

“What kind of emergency?” yelled a teenager. He wore a
baseball cap with foam brains stuck to the top. “I thought
zombies were safe!”

“Safety standards at ZombieLand exceed state and federal
requirements,” she reassured us. “The drills are a holdover
from years ago, before zombies were brought under control.”

She gave the audience a confident smile. “Everything is
perfectly safe. As a representative of ZombieLand, I apologize
for any inconvenience. You will all receive free passes to the
next showing.”

“How often do they do these drills?” I asked as we filed out
of the theater.

Bissa shrugged. “I’ve never seen one before. But I’ve only
worked here since March.”

“Oh.” I searched for something else to say, anything to
break the silence. I’d never been able to talk to women. I wor-
ried too much, and it made me freeze up. Like I was doing
now. She was watching me again, waiting for me to speak.

“I think you’re beautiful,” I blurted out.

She dimpled. “Yeah, sure. My hair’s a frizzed mess, I’ve got
ketchup on my shirt, and I smell like burger grease. What’s
not to love?”

But she twined her fingers with mine as we walked through
the crowd.

T T T

Bissa got us into the next show for free, which was a good
thing since my wallet was running dry. We sat near the front
row and watched a group of zombies in Army uniforms re-
enact the Firebombing of Fargo. Most of the seats were empty.
A cardboard zombie outside the door had proclaimed that the
show was For Mature Humans Only.

Up on stage, a lone woman — a human woman — sat in a
mock control room, surrounded by blinking lights. The com-
mand station in Fargo, a small radio station where Linda
Gray strom had condemned the town — and herself — to death.

“Tell me about yourself,” whispered Bissa. “What do you
do when you’re not picking up women at ZombieLand?”

“I do field testing for the Department of Environmental
Quality.”

“A state employee? So you’re halfway to being a zombie
yourself.” She chuckled. “Do your bosses know how you’re
spending your afternoon?”

Her laughter came from deep in her throat. And it was a
real laugh, not the delicate tinkle some women affected.

162

Jim C. Hines

At the control center in Fargo, zombies proceeded to break
through the door, only to find Linda waiting. Even with
leather mittens strapped over their hands and blue nylon
stitches sealing their lips shut, the sight of attacking zombies
still made many audience members shift uncomfortably.

Linda’s pistol thundered again and again. Blanks, of
course, but the zombies flopped backward as they had been
trained to do. The biting smell of gunpowder drifted through
the crowd. When the ammunition ran out, Linda attacked the
last zombie with a foot-long knife, splattering drops of black
blood across the stage. A plastic screen kept the audience
from being splashed.

“What brought you to ZombieLand?” Bissa asked.

I turned away from the stage. “I was collecting water sam-
ples all morning.” I had gotten lost three times before I fin-
ished. “I have test tubes from every drinking fountain, hose,
sink, and bathroom in the park, all labeled and refrigerated in
my car. I figured I’d relax for a bit before heading back.”

“Spoken like a true state worker,” she said. “So you’re
playing hooky? I hadn’t pegged you for the rebel type.”

“Once, I even stole a box of paperclips from supplies,” I
said, deadpan.

“Tell me more, bad boy.” She squeezed my hand. “It makes
me go all tingly.”

We laughed again. I marveled at how natural it felt. I had
started to relax enough to talk and joke, and she wasn’t
bored! She didn’t even mention my initial awkwardness and
embarrassment back at the Snack Shack.

On stage, Linda sat back in her chair. Her face was drawn
and pale. Her sleeve was torn, bloody from the bite of a zom-
bie. Historically, the wound had probably been deeper, but
the blood dripping down her arm looked real enough.

She knew what would happen. She knew dozens of zom-
bies were even now roaming the streets, and she knew what
would happen if they weren’t stopped. The speakers played
the actual tape of Linda Grays trom’s final orders, activating
the contingency plan that wiped Fargo from the map. Then
the actress set down the radio and raised her fake gun to her
head. The curtains closed an instant before the gun went off.

The audience applauded politely.

I looked away, my cheerfulness gone.

“What’s wrong?” Bissa asked.

“Nothing. I . . . can we go somewhere else?”

“How about the Hall of Dead Presidents? That’s usually
quiet. Too intellectual for most folks.”

163

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes

We had walked about a hundred yards when gunfire and
screams from the theater cut through the afternoon air. I
jumped, and Bissa glanced back.

“They must have added another act to the show. An
encore, you know?” She touched my arm. “Hey, you look
pretty shaken up. You’re not one of those ZRA people, are
you? If so, don’t worry about the one who got knifed. They fix
it up after every show. Staples, superglue, and a week in the
dirt, and it’s good as new. More or less.”

“I’m not a Zombie Rights nut,” I said, slipping an arm
around her shoulder. “It’s just ...”

“You can tell me.” Her voice was warm, and she looked up
at me so openly that I kissed her before I realized what I was
doing. It was only a quick peck, but she didn’t pull away.

We kept walking in silence, our bodies pressed into one
another like those couples I had watched and envied over the
years. Now it was finally my turn. My turn to slip a hand
around a beautiful girl’s waist. My turn to pull her close and
feel her do the same.

I was in heaven.

T + T

“It’s because of my brother, Sam,” I said. “He joined the
National Guard in college. When the first uprising hit, back
before mandatory cremation, he was one of the guys they
called in to protect Vegas.”

Richard Nixon waved victory Vs at us from behind a wall
of plexiglass. Tricky Dick was the healthiest zombie in the
building, being the most recently deceased. The tip of his nose
was a bit rotted, but overall, he was remarkably intact.

I wasn’t impressed. Bissa had already explained how they
had to implant steel rods to keep his fingers bent like that.
When I looked closely, I could see the tip of one rod protrud-
ing through his index finger.

“What happened?” she asked gently as she pulled me along.

“They thought it would be easy. The zombies didn’t put up
much resistance, so the Guard herded them into the Luxor.”

“That’s the pyramid, right? The casino with the big spot-
light on top?”

“Used to be,” I said, then lost myself in the memories.

They sent a Guardsman to our house with the news. He
arrived right before dinnertime. I still recalled the smell of my
mother’s chili simmering on the stove, and the overpowering
scent of sage from the recent storms wafting through the house
as my father opened the door.

164

Jim C. Hines

Officially, Sam died battling zombies in the Luxor. Years
later, I talked to a friend at the CDC and learned the truth.

Bissa gave my hand a squeeze and brought me back to
the present. “So Sam was sent to the Luxor,” she prompted.

I gave her a weak smile. “He was posted on the fourth
floor, guarding the stairs. They had a few people on every
floor, just in case. This was back before they knew how con-
tagious the stuff was. I guess a group of zombies on the
ground floor broke free and started feeding on anyone in
sight. You know how they get when they’re hungry.”

“Yeah.” She shivered. “You couldn’t pay me enough to
work as a feeder. One little slip, and ...”

It as my turn to squeeze her hand. We waited while a
group of school kids walked past, tapping the plexiglass to see
if they could get a withered Harry Truman to react.

Bissa took a deep breath. “You said Sam was on the
fourth floor.”

“That’s right. The Luxor is hollow on the inside. From the
balcony, Sam could see everything that happened.” I sighed
raggedly. “The Guardsmen were outnumbered, and the zom-
bies’ sudden rush caught them off guard. ...”

I relived it in my nightmares for months after I’d learned
what happened. I could hear the rapid popping of gunfire, the
shouted orders and panicked screams, and the crunch of
shattering skulls as the zombies fed, splitting the heads of
their enemies as easily as I might crack an eggshell.

“Sam rallied a handful of men,” I said sadly. “They took up
sniper positions and picked off zombies one by one.”

“He sounds very brave.”

“He was too late to save the men on the first floor, but he
made sure the zombies didn’t escape. I saw photos of the
place. Real photos, not the sanitized stuff that made it into the
papers. There was blood everywhere, red and black both.
Blood on the statues, in the carpets, splattered over the slot
machines and the roulette wheel.” My voice caught. “Blood in
the fountains.”

Her grip tightened on mine.

“It got into the water supply,” I said. “Sam must have
taken a drink from a water fountain. Or maybe he needed to
wash off after the slaughter, I don’t know.”

We stopped to watch Lyndon Johnson pace the length of
his clear prison.

“They had to napalm the Luxor a week later. They caught
Sam in Reno, eating his girlfriend’s father. Sam had shot him
in both legs to keep him from running.”

165

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes

Bissa’s face was pale, and her lower lip trembled slightly.
“I didn’t know. I remember seeing the news — they said it was
a minor outbreak, that a broken gas line caused the explo-
sion. My God, how can you even stand to be here?”

“Years of therapy,” I said. “That, and knowing Sam helped
stop an outbreak. At least we never had to resort to nukes.
Look at Taiwan or Sydney.”

I concentrated on my breathing, going through the relax-
ation exercises my therapist had taught me. They didn’t work.

“They told us Sam died fighting zombies, and that’s what I
choose to believe. He died a hero, as much as Linda Graystrom
or anyone else.”

“Sam was a hero,” she said firmly. “And so are you.
Driving all over the state to check the water and make sure
nothing like that happens again.” She kissed my cheek and,
in a little girl voice, said, “My hero.”

I thought about the samples locked in the cooler in my
Jeep and tried not to feel guilty. I was no hero. In all the years
I had worked at DEQ, I had yet to find a single contaminated
water source. I had yet to do anything that mattered. My job
was a joke. And every time I sent a test tube through the ana-
lyzer, it reminded me of Sam.

I didn’t want my bitterness to ruin things with Bissa, so I
smiled and said, “I guess so.”

“Come on. Let’s go someplace quieter.”

Until she mentioned it, I hadn’t noticed the screams out-
side. The Hall of Dead Presidents was sandwiched between
the Pale Horse Water Ride and the Catacombs Coaster (guar-
anteed to scramble even the heartiest of brains). From the
sound of it, the coaster delivered the promised terrors and
more.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

Her eyes twinkled. “I know a place where nobody will
bother us.”

T T T

“They’re calling it the Petting Zoo,” Bissa explained. She
passed her ID card in front of the lock, and the LED turned
green. “It’s not scheduled to open until August, but they’ve
already got some of the exhibits set up.”

The air inside was cooler. It reminded me of the hay and
excrement smell of a barn, but the stench of death and decay
overpowered everything else. Bissa gave me an apologetic
half- shrug.

“It’ll smell better once they get the ventilation hooked up.

166

Jim C. Hines

Come on — the far end of the building is all administrative
offices and a gift shop. The stink shouldn’t be as bad down
there.”

I glanced around as we walked through the corridor, our
footsteps surprisingly loud against the cement floor. The zoo
was laid out like the Hall of Dead Presidents, with individual
rooms to either side, walled in by thick plexiglass.

In one cage a boa constrictor rested on a tilted two-by-four.
Its middle segments were little more than bone, and its dirty
skin flaked and peeled like a bad case of sunburn. On the
other side, an otter banged a severed chicken’s head against a
rock, trying to get at the tender brains inside. In the next dis-
play, a squirrel scraped bloody claws against the cement, try-
ing in vain to bury the half-eaten corpse of a mouse.

“You won’t actually be able to pet them, of course,” Bissa
said. “I mean, they say animals can’t infect humans, but you
know how worked up people get about zombies.” She bit her
lip. “I didn’t mean you. I meant . . . damn. That was stupid.”

“It’s okay,” I said, with a hug to let her know I meant it. In
truth, I was starting to like ZombieLand. I liked seeing them
in cages or performing for their living masters. It was proof
that we had won.

We moved on to a parrot that was flapping in vain as it
tried to reach its perch. Its wings were featherless gray meat,
the ends black with rot.

“They’re trying to teach the animals tricks,” Bissa
explained. “I guess it’s even harder than with human zombies.
The handlers are always talking about how you can’t teach a
dead dog new tricks.”

I smiled. “So where are the handlers?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Ella’s supposed to be on
duty today, but she’s a flake.” She poked me in the side and
grinned. “Or maybe she found a good-looking, intelligent,
compassionate man, and they went somewhere they could be
alone.”

Even I could read a signal like that. Our tongues danced
together as we pressed our bodies close. Her hands grabbed
my waist and moved lower.

When she finally pulled away, it was only to gasp for air
and lead me to the empty gift shop down the hall. We locked
the door behind us. Bissa was right — the smell was less
noticeable in this part of the building.

Soon we were rolling on the carpet behind an empty dis-
play case, little more than animals ourselves.

167

Brainburgers and Bile Shakes

4 4 4

Hours later, we snuck out the back door of the Petting Zoo
and into the chill night air. I glanced at my pager to check the
time. Nearly nine o’clock. Two hours after ZombieLand closed.

Most of the lights were out. We stumbled along in the
moonlight, giddy and giggling as we held each other.

I stepped in something sticky. Hard to tell in the dark-
ness, but it looked like someone’s spilled Snack Shack meal,
complete with a finger-on-a-stick, sans stick.

Bissa sniffed in disgust. “The cleaning crew should have
taken care of that. They probably left early, figuring the
pigeons would clean up the worst of it.”

She appeared to be correct. I spotted a pair of birds pick-
ing at something stringy on a bench. They looked big for
pigeons. Then again, these pigeons feasted on fried food every
night. It was a miracle they weren’t too fat to fly.

“When do I get to see you again?” I asked.

She licked her lips. “How about tonight? You can swing by
my place and pick me up after I change out of these disgusting
clothes.”

66 J 99

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t.” A part of me was still thinking about Sam, and
the water samples in my Jeep. Every time a sample tested
clean, it proved we had won, that Sam hadn’t died for nothing.
“I should get those test tubes back to the lab.”

“It’s a waste of taxpayer money,” she said, leaning her
body into mine. “All of our water gets piped through Reno.
We’re as clean as they are!”

I sniffed, then regretted it. The smell of blood and rot was
stronger without the crowds to overpower the zombie stench.

“I have to,” I said. I thought of the zombies I had seen
today, a far cry from the monsters of my nightmares. When I
spoke, my voice was full of surprise. “ZombieLand is Sam’s
memorial.”

She didn’t answer.

“What’s the matter?”

She pointed at a large man in a ZombieLand uniform up
ahead. “That’s my boss. I never signed out this afternoon.
He’ll kill me if he knows I bailed before the dinner rush.” She
tugged me toward a photo booth where you could get your pic-
ture taken with an actual zombie.

It was too late. The Snack Shack manager hurried to cut
us off, still affecting the limp I had seen during lunch. That
limp had been laughable under the fluorescent lights of the

168

Jim C. Hines

Snack Shack, but the night made it far more credible. His gait
could have belonged to a real zombie.

“Relax,” I said, pulling out my state I.D. “I’ll tell him you
were helping me on my inspection.”

She smiled. “Look who’s Mister Self-Confidence all of the
sudden.”

“It’s you. And this place. ...”

ZombieLand gave meaning to Sam’s death, and to my life.

I glanced around, lost in thought as I approached Bissa’s
shambling boss. After today, I vowed to myself, there would be
no more negligence, no more wasted afternoons or forgotten
water samples.

My work was too important.

ZOMB, Inc

J. ALLEN THOMAS

FROM: temp@zomb.com
TO: barb@warmbodies.com
CC:

SUBJECT: My Current Assignment
Barbara:

To be eaten. It’s the only reason I’m here.

That’s not the reason they gave you. Of course not. They
need additional staff for an IRS audit. So they claimed.

A temp to do last minute sorting, filing, and copying.
Easy work. Simple tasks. Mind-numbing and boring.

They don’t need the work done. No one needs it done.
Who needs pink copies of invoices from ten years ago
sorted by invoice number? The yellow copies are already
sorted. I sorted them yesterday. Why sort the pink
copies, too?

I’ll tell you why: It’s brain tenderizer. The work is soften-
ing up my gray matter, so it’s tender and more delect-
able. My brain is going to be like veal to the zombie
palate.

Look, Barbara. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the
work, but plain and simple — you have to get me out of

I stop typing. I hit Select All. Hit Delete. Barbara’s never
going to buy it. She’ll think I’ve cracked up. And I really do
need the work. Got credit cards to pay. Send that email, and
I’ll never get another assignment from warmbodies.com.

Warmbodies.com. Name of my temp agency. Started as
Internet only, providing temps to start-ups. The name is cyn-
icism typical of the nineties. Never survive this decade with
that name. Probably can’t afford to change the business
cards, so they don’t change the name. Don’t even have a URL
anymore. Still providing warm bodies, though.

A sick joke. A good commercial in the nineties. Nice guy
like me sent from warmbodies.com to work with zombies. See

170 J. Allen Thomas

how bad other placement services are? Inappropriate for 2002.
If you ask me.

The job assignment is over on Friday. Over tomorrow. No
matter what I tell Barbara, she’ll say stick it out. Only one more
day. Stick it out. Maybe lecture me on the warmbodies.com
way of doing things. Of providing reliable and dependable ser-
vices to clients.

Only one day. That’s what she’ll say.

One and a half days, actually. It’s only one o’clock.

Pink copies are all sorted. I need to kill the rest of the after-
noon. I’ll make a list. Organize the facts. Look at where things
stand. Put the matter in perspective. Get a hold of the situation.

FACTS ABOUT MY EMPLOYMENT AT ZOMB. INC.

Fact #1: The acronym.

Spells Zombi. Z-O-M-B plus the ‘I’ in Inc. The company
name is actually Zeeder, Oltemann, Morris, and Brown. But I
think the names are made up. I’ve looked on the phone list.
No one with any of those names works here.

Conclusion: I’m not sure what it means. It was my first clue.
Maybe it’s an inside joke. Never thought zombies had a sense
of humor. Don’t know what to make of it.

Also. I’ve looked at thousands of invoices. And I don’t
know what’s being billed. I don’t get it. Just can’t figure out
what ZOMB, Inc. does. What service it provides. Everyone
works. Or looks like they’re working. I just don’t know what
at. Maybe this should be Fact #2.

Fact ffi: I have an office.

Temps don’t get offices. Outside consultants get offices. Not
temps. Degrades the employees sitting in cubicles. Makes them
feel like a temp is more important. Makes them bitter. Sure, the
controller says it’s the only open workspace in Accounting.
Right. I’ve worked lots of places. This is what happens: Cubicle
person moves into office; I move into vacated cubicle.

Conclusion: They are trying to keep me isolated from other
employees. Two reasons: 1) So I don’t get suspicious; 2) So
employees don’t go into feeding frenzy.

Fact #3: The address.

1968 Romero Drive, Monroeville.

Conclusion: Coincidence? I think not.

ZOMB, Inc.

171

Fact #4: The interior decor.

The walls are off-white. The carpet is beige. So are the cubi-
cle walls and doors. The desks, file cabinets, and blinds, too.
Come to think of it, the toilet stalls are beige, too. No colors any-
where. Only the occasional fake tree in the comer of an execu-
tive’s office.

Conclusion: No living being could design such a bland office.
More importantly, no living being could work for years in this
office. Not without adding some color. Memos on blue or pink
paper tacked up on the walls. Graffiti. Something. Ergo, no
living beings work in this office.

Fact #5: The climate control.

It’s always freezing. No one else seems to notice. Just me.

Conclusion: They keep it cold on purpose. To slow decompo-
sition. Like putting hamburger in the freezer.

Fact #6: Injuries.

Or, at least, so-called injuries. Something is wrong with
everyone in the office. The man two doors down has three fin-
gers on his right hand. The receptionist at the front desk is
missing her left hand. She wears a headset. She only needs
one hand to dial the phone. But still.

And the list goes on. Eight cubicles in a row and each
occupant with a wrist brace. Some on the right wrist. Some on
the left. Some on both. Eight people with braces on their
wrists. Supposed to think carpal tunnel syndrome (the black
lung disease of the computer age)? But eight people in a row?
A little much.

Even better. The man in the office down the hall. He sits
behind a desk. He wears a suit and tie. Two crutches are
leaned up against the wall. Sometimes he pushes his chair
out from behind his desk, and rolls it over to a file cabinet.
When he does, you can see him from the waist down. He
wears bermuda shorts. Wrapped around both legs are puffy
braces with Velcro straps running up the sides. His shorts
hide the top of the braces. He wears patent leather shoes.
Black dress socks are pulled up over the bottom of the braces.
Supposed to think he’s had knee surgery? That a lifetime of
jogging and sports have ruined his knees? But no doctor oper-
ates on both knees at the same time.

Conclusion: They keep it cold, but not cold enough.
Decomposition sets in. They slow it down, but it still happens.

172 J. Allen Thomas

Not easy to keep a dead body from rotting. Not without freez-
ing the body solid.

The employees wear slings and braces to hold themselves
together. Without them, they would fall apart. The employees
lose fingers and hands. Probably toes, too, but shoes hide
that. Come to think of it, none of the women wear open-toe
shoes. No surprise. No surprise at all.

All zombies have this problem. Decomposition is an occu-
pational hazard. But ZOMB, Inc. offers benefits. Good bene-
fits including comprehensive health care that addresses the
working zombie’s needs. A steady supply of soft, temp brains
to stop the decay and regenerate dead tissue. Not even a co-
pay to get the prescription filled. The company pays for it all.

Fact #7: The work I do.

Conclusion: Brain tenderizer.

Fact #8: The employees’ hair.

It’s always the same. Day in and day out, it looks exactly
same. Parted in the same place. Always the same length. It
never changes. Not even in a strong wind. I walk out of the
office, and the wind blows my hair all over the place. They
walk out into the wind, their hair barely moves.

Conclusion: They wear wigs. No one could fix their hair the
same way every morning. Make sure it stays the same all day.
Not real hair. Even with styling gel and hair spray, haircuts
every week, constant fixing using a compact or in front of a
bathroom mirror, it’s impossible.

Further evidence of wigs. I went into the bathroom the
other week. An employee was adjusting his toupee. His toupee?
No one wears a toupee nowadays. Hair implants, special lotions
that reinvigorate follicles. Just watch late-night television. A
thousand ways to cure baldness. Multimillion dollar industry.
New advancements every year. But here they have toupees.

Why wigs? Obvious in light of the facts. None of the
employees have any brains. Their brains were scooped,
sucked, licked out when they first started here. And they have
holes in their heads. The wigs hide the holes. Wearing hats
indoors would be suspicious. Instead, they wear wigs.

Fact #9: That woman.

The one that just walked by my door. She walks past
every fifteen minutes, starting at exactly 8:05 a.m. The last

ZOMB , Inc.

173

time is at exactly 4:35 p.m. She always walks from right to left.
Never the other way. She always carries a single sheet of
paper. She walks slowly. She wears the same outfit every day.
The outfit is gray and twenty years out of style. The woman is,
too. Her hair, her skin — both gray.

I followed her once. This is her routine: She gets up from
her desk. She picks up a sheet of paper from her in-box. She
walks to the copier (past my office). She copies the sheet of
paper. She walks to the fax machine with the two sheets of
paper, original and copy. She faxes one of the sheets of paper.
Always the original. She walks back to her cubicle (going the
other way around the office). That’s why I never see her walk
from left to right. She sits down at her desk. She places the
copy in her out-box. She places the original in a file drawer.
She takes out a compact. Opens it. In the mirror, she makes
sure her wig is still in place. It always is. She gets up from her
desk, and does the circuit again. All day. Four times an hour.
Except for the last hour. Then only three times. I don’t know
what she does with the last fifteen minutes.

Conclusion: That woman is a zombie.

SUMMARY:

Cunning and diabolic. The zombies have set up an office.
They pretend to work. Pretend to keep busy. They bring in a
new employee. They bring in a temp. They bring in a fresh
brain. They get the brain nice and tender with stupid work,
repetitive work. Then they eat the soft brain. Soft — exactly
how they like a brain. A steady supply of fresh brains keeps
the decay from getting out of hand. Keeps them from looking
too freakish. Cunning and diabolic. No shambling around the
streets chasing after living people. No breaking into houses.
Nothing like that. The living come to them. After getting eaten
for department lunch, the new employee becomes one of the
living dead. Sticks around. Works his way up the ZOMB, Inc.
corporate ladder. Puts away for 401k.

That woman walked by a few minutes ago. I look at the
clock. 4:45 p.m. Time to wrap things up and go home.

I look over the facts. It’s all there in black and white.
Zombies waiting to eat me.

I fold up my fact sheet. Slide it in my back pocket. Don’t
want anyone to find that. Could be incriminating.

I open a drawer. Take out my time sheet. I pencil in eight
hours for the day. I look at the bottom of the sheet. Specifically,

174

J. Allen Thomas

the supervisor’s approval line. I need to get the controller to
sign off on my hours tomorrow. If I’m not here, he won’t do it.
I won’t get paid for this week. No signature means no pay.
Guaranteed.

I have to be here tomorrow to get his approval. I have
credit cards to pay. I need the money.

This is a problem. I’ll have to think about this.

I put the time sheet back in the drawer and wait for five
o’clock. Then I leave.

T T T

Friday morning has come and gone. Sorting invoices
makes time fly.

I walked in this morning to more invoices. Goldenrod
copies this time. Same invoices, just a different color. A big
pile of them on my desk with a Post-it Note on top. The note
said: Please sort these by invoice number. Thanks.

No one’s going to look for these invoices either. Just like
no one will look for the pink copies.

I sorted them anyway. Had nothing better to do. And the
morning flew by.

I have a plan. It’s going to work. I’ll get the controller’s sig-
nature. Get paid. Get my credit cards paid.

This is the plan: I’ll leave early. Take them by surprise.
Walk into the controller’s office at three o’clock. Ask him to
sign off on my hours. Tell him I have to leave early. Going to
visit my parents for the weekend. Got to catch a train. Sorry
didn’t tell him sooner. Just came up. Unexpected. Sorry, but
these things happen.

He won’t be able to cope.

These zombies have a routine. It’s important to them.
Zombies aren’t free thinkers. Or deep thinkers. Or any kind of
thinkers at all. You leave the office at five o’clock, not earlier.
It’s the routine. You can’t break a zombie’s routine. That and
meals of soft, fresh brains. Can’t take either of those away
from a zombie. It’s all the zombie has to look forward to.

The controller won’t be able to cope. He’ll just sign off. Say
thanks for working so hard. Wish me well. What else can he
do?

I lean back in my chair. Watch the minutes tick by on the
clock. Consider how good my plan is. Foolproof. Proof against
fools. It’s that good.

2:55 p.m.: I open the desk drawer and take out my timesheet.
I hum a song. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller.”

ZOMB, Inc. 1 75

2:56 p.m.: I pencil in my hours for the day. All six of them. I
sign my timesheet.

2:57 p.m.: I stretch my arms, crack my knuckles, and stand
up.

2:58 p.m.: I leave the office, timesheet in hand. I remember to
bring a pen. In case the controller pretends he can’t find one.
No easy excuses for him.

2:59 p.m.: I get to the controller’s office early. The door closes.

Open-mouthed, I’m watching the controller close his door
on me. My plan might be going awry. I suspect it is going
awry.

The controller’s assistant says, “Meeting. You can wait. If
you want.”

She’s staring at her computer screen. Her eyes are out of
focus. She’s typing. Wearing headphones and a brace on her
right wrist. Working foot pedals underneath the desk. She’s
typing up meeting notes from a tape recording.

I glance at her computer screen. Read what’s there.

As per the discussion of May 15, resolution of this issue
concerning employee wages and holiday bonuses will
be postponed until the next meeting of the board, to
take place on . . .

I look down the page. Read the next paragraph:

As per the discussion of May 15, resolution of this issue
concerning adjustment of hiring policies, to be in accor-
dance with new legislation, will be postponed until the
next meeting . . .

The other paragraphs all begin the same way. Different
issues, same resolution. Pages and pages of postponements.

+ 4* T

Fact # 10 : The board of directors.

The board of directors at ZOMB, Inc. never makes a deci-
sion. Always postpones decisions until their next meeting.

Conclusion: Further evidence that no work is actually done at
ZOMB, Inc.

T T T

I wait a half-hour. Wait an hour. The door finally opens. I
look at my watch. 4:00 p.m.

176

J. Allen Thomas

I can work with this. Adjust my plan. Should still work.
Still leave early. I was hoping to meet buddies for happy hour,
but won’t be able to now. Okay. No big deal. Plenty of drinks
later. The plan should still work. I’m still breaking the zombie
routine.

Two men come out of the office. The one I don’t know
walks with a cane. Both men wear gray suits. Have gray hair.
Both are smiling. Stiff smiles. Each more like a rictus, than a
smile. Both have bad teeth. Yellowish-brown teeth. Too much
coffee, too many cigars. Maybe. More likely both have bad
tooth decay. Both have zombie teeth.

“Speak of the devil,” the controller says when he sees me.

“The young man?” the other asks.

“Yes, Mr. Zeeder.”

“The temp? The hard worker?”

“The same, Mr. Zeeder.”

The man looks at me. The one I don’t know. Mr. Zeeder. I
want to protest. He’s not on the phone list. No office with a
name plate for him. Where’d he come from?

Mr. Zeeder says, “Come with me. There’s work for you to
do. I need a hard worker.”

I hold out my timesheet and pen. I start to speak. He
interrupts, “Things for us to talk about? Later. Time for us to
work. Plenty of time to talk. Later.”

He leans on his cane. His other hand squeezes my shoul-
der. Then he leads me away. He drags his left leg and walks
slowly.

He won’t sign off on my timesheet. Not until the work is
done. I know he won’t.

I go with him. Adjust my plan. Do the work. Do it quickly.
I can still get out of here early. I can still leave with my brains
intact.

I make copies for him. He’s going away on business. Going
far away, for a little while. He needs copies of reports to take
with him. Lots and lots of copies.

I hurry to get the copies done. The copier jams. The copier
runs out of legal paper. The copier needs more toner. The
copier is out to get me.

Finally done, I ask Mr. Zeeder to sign my timesheet.
There’s still time to get away. He looks at it. Looks at the clock.
Looks at me. “Six hours for today? More like eight. Correct it.
Want to be paid, don’t you?”

I look at the clock. 4:58 p.m. I start to panic.

He says, “Don’t worry. Only two minutes. No one will
notice. Pencil in eight. Correct it and I’ll sign off.”

ZOMB, Inc. 177

I’m hurrying to correct my timesheet. Scribble out the six.
Pencil in an eight. I hand it over to Mr. Zeeder.

He says, “You forgot to initial it. Initial the changes.
Standard policy.” He hands back my timesheet. Unapproved.
I groan. Slump in my seat. Look at the time.

The workday is over.

I don’t hear the employees leaving their desks. Shambling
through the halls with off-white walls. Shuffling along the
beige carpet. Coming to Mr. Zeeder’s office. Gathering outside
Mr. Zeeder’s office door.

I don’t hear them. But I know they’re out there.

I initial the changes on my timesheet. Hand it back to Mr.
Zeeder.

He smiles. He signs my timesheet. He doesn’t hand it back
to me. Instead, he says, “A hard worker. Fast copier. Zeeder,
Oltemann, Morris, and Brown needs employees like you.
Fresh blood. New insights. Fresh brains. ...”

T T T

FROM: temp@zomb.com
TO: barb@warmbodies.com
CC:

SUBJECT: My Current Assignment
Barbara:

I have accepted a full-time position at Zeeder, Oltemann,
Morris, and Brown, Inc. The position provides me with a
good salary and excellent benefits. Even 50% matching
for my 401k.

Thank you for helping me get my foot in the door.
Without you and warmbodies.com, none of this would
have been possible. Your aid has been invaluable. This
is an excellent opportunity.

In a related matter: The IRS audit has been post-
poned. But there is still work to be done. The controller
has requested you send another temp. It would be
appreciated.

Thanks again,

J. Thomas
Billing Clerk

Zeeder, Oltemann, Morris, and Brown, Inc.

Life Sentence

DAVID DVORKIN

Sid watched the young woman next to him and did his
best to imitate her.

Raise the little pickaxe. Chip, chip, chip at the wall for fif-
teen seconds. Bend over, lay down pickaxe, scoop up the tiny
bit of debris, and dump it in the bucket behind you. Pick up
pickaxe. Straighten. Repeat cycle. What I did on my summer
vacation. Perfect capstone to a wasted life.

He had had no idea how hard the rocks underlying the
surface of the moon were. Every blow with the pick shuddered
through his arm. He had a headache, and it increased with
every impact. Each time, just a few small splinters of rock
broke free and fell slowly to the ground.

The girl moved without thought or fatigue. Sid’s fatigue
was growing, and his thoughts wouldn’t stop. She seemed so
alive, she moved with such grace, her naked body was so firm
and appealing. Why was she here? Insulted some small-town
official, perhaps? Refused to sleep with someone? He imag-
ined himself rescuing her and earning her undying love.

A large chunk of rock came loose under her pick and fell
onto her right foot. She ignored it and went on chipping at the
wall. Sid tried to concentrate on the wall, too.

It took less every year to be capitalized and stiffed. No
doubt impersonating a zombie was covered somewhere in the
fine print in the Union legal code. The need for cheap,
low-maintenance labor kept increasing, fuel sources kept
diminishing, and the laws kept getting, well, stiffen If he
slipped up, he could easily end up down here for real.

He glanced quickly at the young woman. No blood oozed
from under the rock that had crushed her foot. She was mov-
ing much less gracefully now that one foot was pinned in place,
but she continued mechanically, tirelessly with her work.

What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

Sid knew what he was doing there, but he was growing
less sure about the outcome.

Or at least he had thought he knew, when he was still on
Earth, explaining his brainstorm to Jimmy. Things looked dif-
ferent back there, surrounded by lifers and an atmosphere.
Breathing that atmosphere.

Life Sentence

179

Jimmy had promised Sid that he’d provide everything.
And, indeed, Jimmy had provided a sleazy surgeon and all the
necessary paperwork, and had bribed a transportation guard
to slip Sid in with the stiffs. As the scheme progressed, it had
become clear that Jimmy was spending far more money set-
ting things up than Sid had estimated would be required. Sid
was impressed. Jimmy collected money; only rarely was he
willing to contribute any up front. This increased Sid’s confi-
dence in his own plan and made him think that the profits
would be even greater than he’d suggested to Jimmy. It made
him feel there really was a point to all of this, which would be
a nice change in his life. It was almost enough to make him
forget the surgeon with the dirty fingernails cutting into his
chest.

Sid babbled nervously throughout the procedure, right up
to the point where the power of speech was taken from him.
The surgeon’s replies were short and not all that informative.
He just moved around the operating table, hooking Sid up to
various curious machines, jabbing needles into his arms, and
then, finally, slicing his chest open.

“Lie back,” he said when Sid raised his head, trying to see
what was being done to him.

Sid put his head back. “You know what you’re doing,
right?”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Not for Jimmy.”

The doctor shook his head. “For the zombie cults.”

“That’s illegal!”

The doctor laughed.

“You do regular surgery, too, right?” Sid stammered.
“Legal surgery?”

“This pays better.”

To Sid’s relief, the doctor pulled on a pair of gloves over
his unwashed hands. He placed a gadget in the incision in
Sid’s chest and touched a button. The gadget began to spread
the incision apart, forcing Sid’s chest open.

Sid gasped, even though he felt nothing. I ought to be in
agony, he thought. Instead, he felt peaceful, calm, detached.
And glad the doctor had told him to lie back and not try to
watch.

Jimmy was standing nearby, watching everything with
fascination. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing into the gaping
opening.

“Uh-uh.” The doctor pushed his hand aside. “Don’t touch.”

Jimmy stepped back. He continued to stare. “Last time I

180

David Dvorkin

saw something like that. . . . Hey, Sid, you remember that guy
a couple of years ago? Behind the tavern on South
Washington?” He glanced at Sid, at the doctor, and said,
“Never mind.”

The doctor worked steadily, draining away Sid’s blood and
replacing it with an artificial substitute, implanting in Sid’s
abdominal cavity a small tank of liquid oxygen and a tiny
gadget that began gasifying the oxygen, combining it with
nutrients, and dribbling the result into the artificial blood.

“Good enough for a couple of weeks,” the doctor muttered.

Sid felt motions, tugging, pressure, no pain. Guess I'm
already half zombie, he thought.

Zombie cults. Sid had seen one of their recruitment videos.
Illegal, strictly underground, but slickly produced and, by God,
appealing.

He had also seen the videos put out by Corrections — had
been required to watch them in school, a couple of times a
year, from third grade on. The ones from Corrections were
intended to scare kids away from a life of crime, or even from
petty crimes. They showed ranks of staring, grimacing zom-
bies working in mines or in deserts or underwater or on
remote space stations. They all looked as though they were in
pain, suffering, regretting the deeds that had brought them to
that awful state. The video ended by saying, “Nowadays, the
dead still work for the living. Those who die a natural death
become part of the great natural cycle.” Pictures of machines
spreading fertilizer over fields of healthy grain. “Those who
have been prematurely capitalized and stiffed because they
turned to a life of crime earn a different fate.” Pictures of the
working, suffering zombies again. “It’s your choice which path
you’ll take.”

By contrast, the zombie cult video emphasized peaceful-
ness, detachment, escape from the travails of life while still
being in the world. Those stiffs weren’t suffering. They were
calm, transcendent. “Escape your worries,” the voice-over had
said. They were all young and beautiful, too. “Escape your life.
Join us.”

“What you did for the zombie cults,” Sid said to the doc-
tor, “that was like what you’re doing to me. So they’re not real
zombies.”

“Of course not. It’s not like the technology the govern-
ment has. This isn’t permanent. It can be undone. You won’t
really be dead. When the government stiffs you, it’s real and
permanent.”

“Is it worth it?” Sid asked. “The zombie cults. Paying a lot

Life Sentence 1 8 1

of money to be a pretend stiff for a while and worrying about
being caught. Is it worth it?”

The doctor said, “Is anything worth it?” He reached up
and pulled a dangling tube down from the ceiling. “Any last
words?”

Before Sid could respond, the doctor pointed the nozzle of
the tube at him and sprayed something over his mouth, seal-
ing it shut. Sid’s eyes widened in shock, and the doctor sprayed
the same stuff over his eyes, sealing them open, unblinking.

“Now you look the part,” the doctor said. “After I close you
up, I’ll spray this stuff all over you. It was developed as a sub-
stitute for space suits. Turned out it breaks down under ultra-
violet light. So no sunbathing.” He chuckled.

You’re enjoying yourself, Sid wanted to say, but he could
only produce muffled sounds.

Jimmy said, “This is so cool!”

“Take a deep breath,” the doctor said. “The last one.” He
did something inside Sid’s chest, and Sid felt his heart . . .
stop . . . beating.

T T T

Sid went from the dirty operating room to a cattle-car
rocket, part of a night shipment of stiffs. He was filled with the
excitement he always felt at the beginning of one of his little
adventures.

He slept on and off during the trip to the moon. Lying atop
a shipment of stiffs — all of them uncomplaining, unmoving,
unthinking, unbreathing, uncaring — he stared into the airless
darkness and felt the first tendrils of doubt.

He tried to preserve his couple of weeks of air by moving
as little as possible. Early in the trip, though, he realized that
sexual arousal was the thing most likely to give him away. He
become intensely aware of his own nudity and the nudity of
the others he was lying on. He concentrated on their dead-
ness. That helped.

He was utterly shut off from them. Their brains were
deader than their bodies. He reminded himself of that. They
were stiffs, not lifers, and he must not make the mistake of
forgetting that. Even if there had been air, they would not
have been able to speak. They could receive simple orders
through receivers implanted in their heads, attached to micro-
circuits hooked into various cerebral control centers.

“I could put one of those gadgets in you,” the surgeon had
told him, “if we could get our hands on one. Make your reac-
tions more convincing. Probably kill you, though.”

182

David Dvorkin

“I don’t think I’d trust you inside my brain,” Sid had said.

“You kidding? I used to do that — implant those things.
Back when I worked for Corrections. Nothing to it. Always
wanted to experiment, change the thing so that it could connect
to the part of the brain that governs sex. You should see some
of those stiffs.” He had grinned at Sid. “Of course, you will.”

The doctor had done something, Sid realized. He had once
been part of the system, doing work that society respected —
feared, anyway. He had been part of something larger. Unlike
Sid, whose life was circumscribed by desperate plots to steal
in order to survive for a few more months.

I lead a hell of a life, Sid thought. Still, it was more of a life
than the stiffs lying in the vacuum with him had.

They had nothing and they had no interest in anything —
not sex, not anything else. They were beyond all pleasure, all
fulfillment. Beyond, too, the emotional agonies that sexual
need leads to. That gave them a kind of peace, he supposed.
Indeed, there was an air of peace in the quiet, dark, airless
hold. Rest in peace, Sid thought, and he would have shivered
if he could.

T T T

When the ship reached the moon, the stiffs were unloaded
by what looked like giant spiders. The machines’ bodies, sus-
pended in the middle of a circle of legs, were hollow and open
on top. There was no sign of a control cabin, no place Sid
could see where a man might sit to direct the machine.

The cargo ship sat on the lunar soil — on the darkside, for-
tunately for Sid — hatch open to the vacuum. The spiders
approached. Patiently, politely waiting their turn, they used
one of their long, spindly legs as a crane to pick the stiffs up,
one at a time, and deposit them in the open body.

Sid tensed as one of the legs moved toward him, its ends
splitting into a huge pincer. It grasped him around the middle
and lifted him easily in the low lunar gravity. The gentleness
of the grip surprised him. Valuable merchandise, he realized.
Or at least, there was no point in rendering a stiff inoperable
right after it had arrived on the moon.

By contrast with the smoothness and efficiency with which
they had unloaded the stiffs onto their backs, the spiders
lurched across the surface toward a nearby building. They
walked as though the movements were painful. Sid reminded
himself that they were just machines under some sort of
remote control. They were as mindless and thoughtless as the
stiffs.

Life Sentence

183

The building was an airlock. Inside, beyond the airlock,
men waited as a signal from somewhere activated the stiffs.
The men led them to an elevator and set them to work. Less
than two days after watching the surgeon cut open his chest,
Sid was underground, beneath the surface of the moon, chip-
ping rocks from the wall of a mine in a vacuum, while the inci-
sions in his chest and abdomen were still itching.

T T T

Sid’s headache was getting worse, and his thoughts had
begun to get away from him. He wanted to blink, but couldn’t.
He wanted to breathe and hear his heart beat. Tendrils of
panic, which had left him alone until now, spread from his
unbeating zombie heart and threatened to overwhelm him.

He fought against the panic. I’m going to be fine, he told
himself, and tallied up his victories so far. I’ve fooled the
guards, fooled everyone, to this point I don’t have to worry
about sunlight destroying the stuff the doctor sprayed on me.
Hey, I’m a thousand meters beneath the surface of the moon —
and here his thoughts got away from him again — naked, not
breathing, trying not to think, surrounded by zombies, chipping
pebbles off a wall and dropping them into a bucket on the
ground. . . .

Sid got himself under control again by focusing on the
reason he’d done all this. Surely he was going to find some-
thing big enough to make the whole thing worthwhile, and
then he would sneak out of the mine and get back to Earth
and have everything reconnected by the surgeon with the
dirty hands. He wasn’t certain what he was looking for among
the chips of rock his pick was digging from the wall.
Diamonds? Gold? Something more exotic? No one knew for
sure, but it must be valuable, given the effort being put into
lunar mining and the number of stiffs being soaked up by the
enterprise, and it had to be something that was worth a great
deal in small quantities, because only that would justify ship-
ping it back home. He had gambled on being able to recognize
the valuable stuff, whatever it was.

Before he was recognized for what he really was.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sid saw a white surface suit
kangaroo-hopping down the tunnel toward him. A guard. Sid
emulated the steady mindlessness of the young woman beside
him. The white figure passed behind him.

Something slammed into his back and drove him against
the wall. He dropped his hammer and fell into the dirt. Dust
sprayed up around him and dropped back to the ground.

184

David Dvorkin

Sid lay on his back, confused. He was staring up at the
suit, except that now Sid could see the guard’s face through
the visor. The guard was grinning in pleasure. He bent down,
yanked Sid to his feet, handed him his pick, and faced him
back toward the wall. He turned away from Sid, toward the
girl.

The guard watched her for a while. She was still strug-
gling to do her work, but her trapped foot was hampering her.
It was obvious that when it was time for the stiffs to take their
buckets and deliver their ore, she would be unable to go with
them.

The guard reached a decision. He unclipped a small device
from his belt, held it up before his visor to examine it briefly,
and then bent forward and reached down toward the girl’s
trapped leg. At the moment the device touched the girl’s leg
and began to slice through it, Sid realized that it was some
kind of saw and that this must be a common occurrence.

She continued to chip away at the wall as her flesh and
bone sprayed into the vacuum and dropped to the ground. Sid
watched, unable to move.

The saw cut all the way through, freeing the zombie from
the rock. She toppled to one side, her hands chipping away at
the air.

The guard stepped back to avoid the fallen girl. He turned
sideways and caught sight of Sid’s fascinated stare. The guard
frowned and stepped forward, raising his saw. Sid stepped
back, raising his hands automatically in defense. The guard
dropped the saw in surprise.

Sid saw the guard’s alarm through the visor, saw his
mouth move as he began to yell a warning into his communi-
cator. Without thinking, Sid slashed his rock pick across the
guard’s visor.

A crack shot across the visor, and the guard fell backward,
clapping his hands to his face. Sid jumped forward, raising his
pick and bringing it down on the suit. He hit the man again
and again. Each blow made a hole, but each hole filled with
something black that oozed out slightly and sealed it.

Sid looked around, desperate for some way of shutting the
guard up before he could call others. The saw rested on the
ground, its blade still vibrating. Beside it, the girl zombie lay
on her back, chipping at the vacuum with her pick. The blood-
less stump of her leg stuck up, the bone showing.

Sid scooped up the saw and sliced at the guard’s leg. The
saw cut through the fabric of the suit and into the flesh
beneath.

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185

This time, blood sprayed into the vacuum. The guard
squirmed away desperately, but the saw cut deep, making too
great a gash for the sealant to close. The suit collapsed, and
the guard stopped moving.

Now I really am a dead man, Sid thought.

Down the tunnel, in both directions, the zombies worked
on. Both sexes, all ages, all sizes and colors, they chipped at
the walls of the tunnel and collected the rubble. Sid looked
down at the young woman, still lying on her back and mining
the vacuum. He stared at the blank face. Was there truly
nothing inside there? He wanted her to be secretly alive, for
them all to be — yearning for release and a return to air and
warmth and human company. He realized now that he had
convinced himself, somewhere deep down, that the others
were really like him, only hiding their humanity. He had been
that desperate to believe that he had not surrounded himself
with the dead.

Sid looked down at the girl’s severed foot and let his gaze
wander to her face, to a cut on her cheek. He hadn’t noticed
that before; it was on the side of her face that had been hid-
den from him. The cut, like the more obvious wound from the
saw, gaped open. No blood, no sign of pain. She really was
dead, as dead as the guard he had just killed. . . .

He looked around at the others. Nearby, a man chipped
steadily away at the rock wall even though the flesh of his
arm, solidifying into rock itself from the cold, had split open,
showing the muscle and bone beneath. Another struck her
shoulder with each backswing of her rock hammer, doing as
much damage to herself as she did to the wall.

There was no mind behind those expressionless faces.
They were all dead in this cold, dry, dead place. These were
simply flesh and bone that moved. These were zombies, just
as dead as any of his ancestors buried in the ground in long-
lost graveyards, the men and women of an earlier age when
people had wasted their dead.

No, he was wrong. These faces weren’t expressionless,
they were placid. These were the dead, but they were the dead
at peace. The dead of the zombie cult video. No grimaces, no
agonies of the soul, no pain of the flesh, no regrets, no fears.
He had never seen such calmness in the faces of the living —
certainly not in his own.

A sense that he was intruding upon them, that he did not
belong in this place, overwhelmed Sid. The feeling was so
strong that it made him forget why he’d come there at all.

He dropped the saw and backed away from the girl.

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David Dvorkin

Farther up the mainline tunnel, he joined a slow, lengthy
procession of workers following a guard. Clearly, the warning
sent by the murdered man had not been heard or had not yet
reached its destination. Here, as everywhere in the mines,
peace reigned. It made Sid feel alien, unwelcome, unclean.

At the first sign of a side tunnel, exiting at a right angle
from the one he was in, he slipped away from the procession.
He had no idea where the tunnel led. He just knew he had to
get away from the dead guard’s body, and remove his own jar-
ring presence from the zombies’ peace.

The side tunnel was narrow and low. He crouched as he
walked along it. The ceiling lowered farther as he walked, and
the dim light from the mainline tunnel dimmed. He feared
irrationally that the tunnel would close in on him, trapping
him forever in the lunar rock. Dead men would move calmly
in the open tunnels, acting with their imposed purpose, con-
tributing something to mankind, while he would be held
immobile forever in the rock, his mind alive and screaming.

He shook the fear off and found his mind a bit clearer,
now that he’d distanced himself from the dead. Better worry
about supplies, he told himself. That’s more rational.

All the extra exertion was a concern. How rapidly was he
using up his internal store of liquid oxygen and nutrients for
his organs? To hell with gold or diamonds or whatever. It was
time to get out and find the guy who was supposed to get him
back to Earth. Sid understood that he would owe Jimmy a lot,
and that he’d have no windfall to pay the debt, but he’d worry
about that when he got back to Earth and was normal again.

To his relief, the tunnel began to widen again. Sid straight-
ened up as the ceiling rose. He could see light ahead. His feel-
ings of panic receded.

He came to another mainline tunnel, just like the one he
had left. A similar gang of placid zombies chipped at the walls.
Sid stepped back into the side tunnel and waited.

After some seemingly endless time, a guard appeared. At a
signal inaudible to Sid, the zombies dropped their pickaxes
into their buckets, picked the buckets up, and formed a line
behind the guard. Sid joined the line. He took the bucket and
pick away from the unprotesting zombie behind him, a
teenaged boy, and fell in behind another worker, a middle-aged
man. The boy followed Sid. Unlike the others, who were
weighted down by their full buckets, the boy bounced up with
every step, almost hitting the ceiling.

The guard led them into a freight elevator and closed the
door once all were inside. The elevator took them to the surface

Life Sentence 187

level, and the guard directed them down another hallway and
into what appeared to be a large room.

Once the dead workers had arrayed themselves in orderly
rows, the guard pulled a heavy door closed and pushed down
on the lever which locked it. He pressed a button beside the
door. After a few seconds, he began to fiddle with his visor. He
flipped it up and breathed deeply, gratefully, with a look of
relief on his face.

Sid couldn’t feel the air that had filled the room, but he
longed to breathe it, to feel his lungs expand with it.

Then he forgot all about oxygen. At some inaudible signal,
the zombies had rearranged themselves, shifted away from the
living guard. And as they pressed close together, Sid finally
saw the face of the middle-aged zombie he had been walking
behind. It was the surgeon who had operated on him.

Jimmy had doublecrossed him. Sid swallowed a silent
curse. You liked my idea so much that you recruited the sur-
geon to play the same game. Bastards , Sid thought. I won’t let
you do this to me. . . .

Now that the workers had shifted, the guard moved to
another door and opened it. He set off down a hallway. The
zombies plodded in a line behind him. Sid set his bucket and
pick down silently, ran up the line, and pulled the surgeon
aside.

The man kept trying to walk. Sid held onto his arm with
both hands to keep him back. The surgeon watched the guard’s
retreating back and kept moving his legs. His feet slid on the
plastic floor. At last the guard and the rest of the zombies dis-
appeared around a comer. The surgeon’s movements slowed
and then stopped. He stood docilely, holding his bucket. He
stared down the passageway after his vanished comrades as
though he longed to join them.

Sid turned the surgeon to face him. They were the same
height, and the surgeon stared into Sid’s eyes, but there was
no sense of human contact.

Sid tried to talk, but the coating covering his mouth and
nose made it impossible to produce a sound. He shook the
other man in frustration.

The bastard’s playing the game, Sid thought. Playing it
well, too. But you know I’ve got you, you goddamn butcher.
Playing zombie won’t get you out of trouble now.

He slapped the surgeon hard. The man swayed slightly,
then regained his balance and stood still, unchanged. Sid
could imagine that he was smiling inwardly and that sparked
his anger. He slapped the man again, harder this time, but

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David Dvorkin

again got no reaction. Furious, Sid snatched the pickaxe and
bucket from the doctor and held the axe up threateningly. See
this? This’ll make you react!

But it didn’t.

Then it hit Sid, and for the first time he wondered: If the
doctor was playacting, too, who had operated on him?

He tossed the bucket away and lowered the pick until one
point rested on the doctor’s shoulder. Still no reaction. Sid
steeled himself and pressed down hard. The tool pierced the
doctor’s skin and sank into his flesh. Sid pulled it out again.
The doctor didn’t move. There was no blood.

Sid dropped the pick and jumped back, releasing the doc-
tor. Responding to a faint signal that only he could hear, the
doctor turned slowly in the direction in which the guard and
the other zombies had gone. He took one slow step in that
direction, then a more confident one, and then he began to
walk steadily away, gliding, following the vanished work group.

Sid could no longer deny the obvious. If the surgeon was
here, then Jimmy had surely also been caught, capitalized,
and stiffed.

Was Jimmy here, too?

No, almost certainly not. It must be coincidence that the
surgeon had been sent to the very same mine and that Sid
had encountered him. There were so many other places where
zombies were being used, places where lifers would require
too much protective gear, and the kind of specialized machin-
ery that could do the work was too expensive and too difficult
to keep in running condition. Jimmy might be at an Antarctic
oil well or a continental shelf salvage job.

The video in grade school had shown one of those under-
sea projects. Naked zombies did the work, under the direction
of lifers in submersibles. Fish of every size cruised the project
in huge numbers, darting in to bite at the stiffs. The wastage
rate was enormous. Larger fish would sometimes show up
and carry a stiff away whole. How productive the stiffs really
were under such conditions, Sid could only guess, but the
Corrections video had made it seem like a bargain for society.
The presentation managed to make that clear, even with its
emphasis on the underlying threat to the young: Screw up
and this will be you. The video’s effect upon Sid and his class-
mates had been profound. Too bad it didn’t last with me, Sid
thought.

But those underwater stiffs had also been grimacing, as
though they were in pain, were aware of their situation, were
suffering. What was the truth, or part of the crime prevention

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189

propaganda? After what Sid had seen on the moon, he won-
dered if Jimmy might be under the sea or on the polar ice,
naked, calm, at peace.

Maybe happy. No, that word meant nothing for zombies.
At peace. Yes, that much Sid now understood.

He looked around the empty corridor and then down at
his own nakedness. Someone was bound to show up sooner
or later. Sid no longer had much confidence in his disguise.
Despite all he’d been through, all that had been done to him,
he had betrayed himself almost immediately to the guard who
had sawed off the girl’s foot. Any guard who was paying atten-
tion would know he was a lifer impersonating a stiff. Surely
the guard he had murdered had been found by now, and Sid
would be the obvious suspect if he were caught.

He snatched up the pickaxe again and hurried down the
hallway after the doctor. He caught sight of him as soon as he
turned the corner, and he fell into step behind him, imitating
his slow, deliberate, gliding walk. Wherever the others were,
the doctor, thanks to his implant, was following them, and at
the moment, continuing this impersonation until he found
out if his mine contact had been captured, too, was all Sid
could think of to do.

The doctor had wanted to get his hands on one of the brain
implants, Sid recalled. In a way, he had succeeded. Sid would
have laughed at the thought, if his face had been mobile.

He followed the surgeon through the twists and turns of
the mining base’s corridors. They passed lifers from time to
time, but these people glanced at them and then away, as
though the two naked men were objects, merely part of the
background. They passed other teams of zombies, too, many
of them carrying buckets of splintered lunar ore.

Before they could catch up with their own work gang, Sid
and the doctor passed a line of stiffs being herded into an air-
lock with the number 3 painted on the wall beside it. Sid
made a mental note of the lock’s location.

The way Jimmy had planned it, Sid would have seventy-
two hours of lunar night left when he arrived on the moon.
Before that time was up, he was supposed to get out through
Airlock 3 and look for a man in a surface suit who would be
waiting with some kind of ship to get him back to Earth. Simple
enough, assuming the would-be pilot had not been capitalized.

Finally, Sid and the doctor caught up with their own
team. The stiffs were dumping the contents of their buckets
into a collecting bin. The surgeon followed the others, mimick-
ing their movements as though he still held his bucket. The

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David Dvorkin

guard watched him with an expression of disgust. Sid fol-
lowed suit, emptying his nonexistent bucket into the bin. The
guard plucked a clipboard from a hook on the wall and typed
a notation into it. Then he put the clipboard back on its hook
and walked away. The stiffs fell into line behind him, carrying
their now- empty buckets.

As they began to troop back down the hallway, another
guard ran up to them. The two lifers conferred with worried
expressions. Sid strained to hear them, but the sounds were
too muffled by his protective coating. He caught one word,
though: murder. He had no doubt what murder they were
talking about.

The new guard rushed off to spread the word, and the
leader of Sid’s work group, still looking worried, led his stiffs
away, back to the elevator that would take them underground
again. Sid hung back.

There was no point in trying to blend back in; even if he
could manage to fool the guards, his own awareness of how
little he belonged in the stiffs’ presence would betray him,
make him give himself away. All he could do now was get out
and get himself back home.

When the team was out of sight, Sid made his way toward
the airlock he had noted before. He stared straight ahead as
he went, ignoring both the zombies and the lifers he passed.
The hand holding his pick hung down by his side. He kept his
back straight and glided along slowly, steadily, deliberately.

A team of lifers in surface suits were assembled at the air-
lock when he got there. He walked past without pausing,
turned a corner, and waited. When he turned back, the corri-
dor was empty and the airlock sealed.

Sid examined the gauges beside the door. One read Outer
Door Status: locked. Another, labeled Chamber Pressure, MB,
read 0. As he watched, the reading on the gauge began to
increase, stopping when it reached 1,000.

He waited a while longer, giving the team that had just
passed through the lock a chance to move away on the sur-
face. Then he lifted the lever, pulled the heavy door open,
stepped inside, pulled the door shut behind him, and locked
it. He pressed the button labeled Evacuate and watched the
gauge beside it drop from 1,000 to 0. For a passing moment,
he felt panic as the air was sucked from the small room. He
shook that feeling away and prepared himself for deliverance
to his homeworld. He needed the kind of calm acceptance he
had seen in the stiffs in the mines. He strove for that.

The door he had locked behind him shook suddenly. The

Life Sentence 191

lever on it moved, as though someone were trying to open it.
Jesus! he thought. They’ve caught up with me!

Then the lever moved again, and kept on moving. The men
on the other side must have overridden the safety device that
would normally keep the door from being opened while the
chamber was evacuated. As long as the outer door remained
locked, they could safely open the inner one. And trap him in
the chamber.

In seconds, air would begin to enter the chamber and the
safety device would activate to keep the outer door from being
opened. Sid lunged at the outer door and pulled the lever up
all the way. He turned toward the inner door, gripping his
pick, ready to defend himself, and leaned backward against
the door to freedom, pushing it open with his back.

The door into the station swung open toward him. Air
rushed through it. Sid glimpsed the panicked men trying to
pull the door closed again. Then he was flung backward
against the outer door, and then through it, onto the surface
of the moon.

And into brilliant sunlight.

He lay on the gritty surface, stunned by the impact,
stunned by the light.

At last, he managed to get to his knees, and then to his feet.
Got to get away from the sunlight, he thought. The airlock? No,
the guards are that way — the ones who survived, anyway.

He looked around desperately. Where was the ship that
was supposed to be waiting for him? Where was his contact?

A figure in a surface suit stood nearby, watching. After a
moment, the figure came hopping toward the airlock door. Sid
crouched, holding his pick defensively. The suited figure
stopped before him and held out one gloved hand.

My pick, Sid thought. He wants the pick. Why? Then he
realized that the man in the suit wanted whatever valuable
item Sid had managed to find. He must be my contact, Sid
thought. He’s been waiting here for me. He looked around but
saw no ship. And when he looked up into the man’s face, the
smirk there was clear, even through his helmet’s faceplate.

There is no ship. There is no way out — never was. There’s
just the sunlight. Jimmy, he thought bitterly. You deserve
whatever’ s happening to you now.

He shook his head at the man in the suit. When the man
moved forward threateningly, Sid held his pick up in warning.
The man paused for a moment, then turned and kangaroo-
hopped away, passing out of sight behind one of the many low
hills.

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David Dvorkin

Sid watched him go, then he turned back toward the air-
lock. Men in surface suits were filing out of it. They carried
what looked like rifles.

Maybe some of them died before they got the inner door
closed again, Sid thought. That’s something, anyway.

The men in the white suits kept coming out of the open
airlock door, spreading out, trying to surround him, like
white-suited attendants at an asylum trying to capture a
wayward inmate.

But they soon made it clear that they weren’t interested in
capturing Sid.

One of them raised a rifle and aimed it at him. They’re
going to shoot me, Sid realized. No trial. I won’t even become a
stiff. I’ve never been of any use to anybody, and I won’t even
be of any use in death. Just trash to be thrown away.

Pain lanced through his shoulder. It shot down his arm,
burned across his chest and down the other arm. Sid glanced
down. Something that looked like cloudy plastic was curling
away from his skin, dropping to the lunar soil. The coating
was breaking down. His skin was burning in the sunlight,
freezing and desiccating in the vacuum.

He turned and hopped after his suited betrayer, following
his tracks in the lunar dust. Dirt puffed around him, bullets
ricocheted. Sid leaped frantically away.

He found shade and shelter on the far side of the small hill
behind which his betrayer had passed. He stopped for a
moment. His brain wanted his lungs to gasp from the exer-
tion. His body didn’t need to. And he couldn’t draw a breath,
out here in vacuum.

Under the stars.

He looked up and marveled at the spectacle. You could
see nothing like this on Earth. Even photographs from space
didn’t do this justice. Unlike perhaps any other member of the
human race, Sid was really seeing the stars, his vision dimin-
ished only by the thin layer of his protective coating, thinner
and less obscuring even than a surface suit’s faceplate.

This was worth something! Even if he didn’t make it, even
if they did catch and kill him, at least he’d have seen this,
which was more than anyone else ever had.

He started hopping again, staying in the shade. No one
seemed to be following him, and he still had quite a few days’
worth of air and nutrients in him. Maybe he could find some-
thing, some way off, some way back to Earth.

What would happen then — if he got back home — he didn’t
know. Maybe he could find another surgeon to undo what the

Life Sentence 1 93

first one had done. Maybe he’d find a way of paying for that
second surgery. Maybe.

He came across a vast crater. It was perhaps a kilometer
across. The rim on the far side reared up, gleaming brilliantly
with sunlight. The nearest section of the rim glowed a ghostly
gray in the reflection of that light, but the rest was in the lunar
shadow, the depths black and impenetrable. And yet Sid
thought he saw movement down in that blackness.
Astonished, frightened, he stopped moving.

The ground shivered beneath his feet. There was move-
ment to his left, a huge shadow moving between him and the
stars. Sid crouched and froze, hoping he was invisible in the
darkness.

It was one of the mechanical spiders, dimly lit by the glow,
looking immense from below, far bigger than it had when he’d
seen it from the ship or even when he’d been dumped into its
hollow body. Each awkward, swaying step sent tremors
through the hard-packed lunar surface.

The spider crept up to the edge of the crater and stood for
a moment as though it were looking down into the pit and
wondering, just as Sid had, about the hints of movement there.
Then it bent its front legs, crouching until its body banged into
the dirt. The ground shook, almost knocking Sid over. He man-
aged to keep his balance and remained still — invisible, he
hoped — in the deep shadow. The spider slowly straightened its
rear legs, tilting its body almost to the vertical.

Zombies, arms and legs flapping lazily in the low gravity,
tumbled from the hold and into the darkness of the crater’s pit,
the final resting place for stiffs that were beyond usefulness.

Sid stared, unable to look away. He was sure that some of
the stiffs were still moving, that it wasn’t gravity or momen-
tum causing them to appear mobile.

After the cascade of stiffs had ended, the spider bent its
rear legs partway, straightened its front legs partway, and
moved back from the crater. It turned about clumsily, shifting
one metal leg at a time. Partway through its rotation, it
stopped and stood for a moment facing Sid.

Infrared sensors! Sid thought. Maybe radar. So that the
controller, wherever he is, can see where the machine is going
when it’s in shadow. Christ, they’ve got me now!

But then the spider started moving again, completed its
turn, and crept slowly, painfully away.

When he was certain the spider was gone and he could no
longer feel its halting steps shivering through the ground, Sid
made his way to the edge of the crater again and stared hard

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David Dvorkin

into the depths. He could see nothing. He knew they were
down there — stiffs, perhaps thousands of them, piled atop
each other, disconnected from any human control and aban-
doned even by their sense of peace. Were they, in fact, moving
around down there, slithering against each other, making fee-
ble, hopeless attempts to climb out?

Horror overcame Sid at the image. But then he realized
that the movement he’d seen was only the shifting of the pile
to accept the newcomers. All lay quiet, the ones beneath held
motionless and calm by the weight above them. And the ones
in the top layer — why, they could spend the hours and days
before the next arrivals staring up at those amazing stars.

Sid, too, looked up at the cold, brilliant lights filling the
sky. Then down into the pit again. This time, instead of feel-
ing that overwhelming sense of distance from the dead, he felt
their unearthly peace enveloping him, inviting him into their
quiet world.

But Sid was not yet ready to take his place there, too
aware of his own uselessness. With regret, he turned away
and retraced his path back toward the station. He drifted over
the blasted landscape like a ghost. All the while he felt the tug
from the craters’ denizens, promising him darkness and calm,
even as he headed back toward the harsh light.

He knew finally what he wanted. At last, peace.

And he knew how he might get it.

He was close to the station now, close enough for some-
one to see him. Sunlight washed over him. He felt the coating
fall away from his mouth and nostrils. He tried to breathe, to
expand his chest, but the air left inside him whooshed out
and his lungs collapsed.

His knees buckled and he floated down into a kneeling
position. His eyes were freezing, his vision leaving him, but he
could make out the white figures moving toward him. One of
them raised a weapon of some kind, pointed it at Sid.

No! Sid tried to shout. They’d kill him, damaging his body
beyond utility, and that would be the end of it — true death, no
atonement for his life through being useful, no achievement of
peace. Above all, no peace, just oblivion.

He had to act, had to stop them, had to kill himself before
they shot.

He found enough strength to shove the pick into his stom-
ach, probing for the canister of liquid oxygen. Through the
agony, he felt the pick strike something solid inside him and
then felt that something rupture. His final second of con-
sciousness was a moment of triumph. He would know the

Life Sentence

195

peace of true zombiehood. He would be of use to humanity,
however briefly, and then he would spend eternity in that
crater, gazing up at the stars.

Sid’s brain had already shut down when the liquid oxygen
gushed from the canister and triggered the explosives the doc-
tor had implanted in him to ensure that the gadgetiy could
not be traced back to his clinic. Most of Sid’s torso was vapor-
ized. He became an expanding cloud of red and white. His feet
and one hand rocketed away and out of sight.

His head survived. In long, lazy bounces, it made its way
toward the crouching, shocked guards. The head ended up in
the middle of the group of them, eyes staring blindly upward
as the men gathered around it, fascinated, oblivious to the
fine rain of the rest of Sid that had begun to fall on them.

T T T

Sid awoke a few hours later, lurching clumsily on his
many legs across the lunar surface, every movement of his
new spider body a torment, his screams of agony inaudible,
compelled to obey the simple commands transmitted to him,
trapped in a metal body that would never be allowed to wear
out.

Ma rtin’s Infer no

TYLER SIGMAN

“Mr. Martin!”

The bosun’s shout startled me out of a particularly pleas-
ant dream involving two half-casks of rum, the ship’s cat,
and a certain black-haired wench I’d met in Curasao on last
porting.

“Get ye aloft an’ take yer shift, ye damned monkey. An’ if
I catch ye dozin’ in the nest I swear t’Hell I’ll come up there
meself an’ you’ll feel the kiss of the whip wakin’ ye!”

My legs were moving before my eyes even flapped open.
Springing into action from a half-slumber is a skill earned by
necessity on a ship; if it’s not some sort of life-threatening
emergency waking you at all hours, it’s the things that your
fellow crew might do to you while you’re out. There is no such
thing as deep, restful sleep on the seas.

I was ten feet up the mainmast’s rigging before the bosun
could get out another word. Henry van Piet was not a large
man, but the flame in his eyes and the creases of his wizened
face inspired respect and obedience, to say nothing of his
arresting voice made raspy by years immeasurable spent
screaming at mates like me. His skill with the lash was leg-
endary, but perhaps as such, he rarely had to resort to it.

As I scrambled up the ropes, I was grateful for the light
wind. My bare feet felt the familiar scratch of thick cord, and
since there was little swaying I made short work of the dis-
tance up to the yard. I had been aloft plenty of times, even in
storms, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Gusts or no, it just
takes one slip to end up a spot that some decklubber has to
swab off the planks with a holystone. Being somewhat small
and perhaps a little too sure of foot, I was continuously being
sent to the tops. The same was true of Syd, the closest thing
I had to a friend on board the Wind Mill As I neared the crow’s
nest, I saw his patch of blond hair and a hook nose peer out
over the edge.

“’Bout time, Jon,” said he, clambering to join me on the fut-
tock shrouds. “Nice as Eden today, but nothin’ going. Perfect fer
a nap, but the old dog downstairs would have me hide fer it.”

I snorted in agreement as I passed him. “I’ve got him stirred
up already, so you’ve got fair warning.”

Martin ’s Inferno

197

As he began slipping down the main shrouds, Syd’s face
assumed the stern set that I recognized as his reputable van
Piet impersonation. “Cheese down them lines faster, I say,”
barked Syd, “or I’ll have ye wantin’ t’get away from me lash so
bad that ye go On Account just so’s t’get hanged fer piracy!”

Chuckling, I grasped the lip of the nest and hauled myself
in. It was a familiar roost: a small wooden basket perched
high off the deck above the main yard, just big enough to fit
someone of my stature sitting, kneeling, or standing.

As expected, a small brass-handled knife was stuck into
one of the weathered boards. Its point was right between the
legs of a very crudely carved woman with galleon- sized
breasts. When we were in the nest, Syd and I amused our-
selves by “cuttin’ art,” as he liked to call it. There was little
else to do when the sky was clear, the weather was nice, and
not a thing was in sight but water out to the sky’s end in all
directions. Like napping, though, if van Piet caught you whit-
tling while you were supposed to be on lookout, he’d threaten
all manner of bodily harm, and you just had to hope he cooled
off by the time you made your way back down deckside. “Ye
lazy- eyed mongrel!” I’d heard more than once. “While yer
cleanin’ yer fingernails we’re liable to get ridden down by
l’Olonais’ ghost ’isself, and I swear on me mam’s own jingles
that death wilna stop me from gettin’ a lash on ye before I’m
taken!”

The old salt was perhaps overly dramatic, but he ran a
tight ship, and van Piet knew that there were only two major
worries for us on each voyage: storm and pirates. Starvation
wasn’t a concern because the Wind Mill always ran well
stocked compared to the number of her crew. As far as the
others, the best you could do to combat storms was to have a
good crew that could steer clear of them when possible, and
handle the sails well when it wasn’t. For pirates, you just
needed to see them coming from as far out as possible and
then get a good lead in the opposite direction. The Wind Mill
had twelve guns, a respectable load for her class, but when it
came down to it, we weren’t a fighting crew. We were traders.

I settled into position, leaning against the nest wall, and
gave the horizon a long scan all around. There was nothing
but golden rays playing on a vast blue blanket.

T T T

Some time later, I started out of an open-eyed daydream. I
had been ostensibly gazing back and forth over the waters, but
my eyes hadn’t been seeing much (except maybe that certain

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woman in Curasao). Then, straight ahead, I could just make
out the form of a hull against the horizon. Instinctively I
cupped my hands and drew a great breath.

“Sail ho!”

The response was instant. Those already on deck jumped
to their feet, if they weren’t there to begin with, and those not
on deck soon were. The cap’n himself was out from his cabin
before I could call the direction.

“One point off the starboard bow, four leagues!”

My hand dropped to my waist, where I had tied the old
beaten spyglass that the cap’n let me use since I was so often
on the masthead. I loosened the cord and brought it up to my
eye, focusing in on the spotted vessel. The crew crowded onto
the forecastle, anxious for a look. With the lack of wind the
listing was minimal and I was able to get the ship in focus
quickly. It was still quite far off, but I could see enough to get
a read on it.

“Mr. Martin!” barked van Piet.

“Yes, sir!” I answered. “Three-masted square-rig. West
Indiaman, maybe, sir.”

“Her colors?” demanded the cap’n eagerly.

“She’s flying none.”

“Her outfit?”

I squinted into the spyglass, looking for the telltale black
spots that marked cannon barrels. “I can’t tell yet, sir. She’s
still too far away to count them. Wait, that’s strange. ...”

“Out w’it Mr. Martin,” called the bosun.

“Well, sir,” said I, pausing. “She’s flying hardly any sail at
all. Two points reefed, I’d say.”

“In calm like this she should be full out if she’s a prayer
of ever gettin’ anywhere fall,” growled van Piet. Our sails were
completely unfurled, trying to catch every bit of push that the
gentle breeze carried.

“Yes, sir,” I agreed. “She’s not moving at all, sir.”

“Cap?” inquired van Piet, looking over at the man.

The cap’n was a portly, middle-aged man with a wiry blue-
black beard and deceptively soft eyes. His look belied his
stature; he had plied the West Indies for years, and never
wavered to make whatever decision was best for the ship. His
judgment had been proven sound enough times during my
stint that I felt grateful to have a man such as he directing the
vessel under my feet.

He fingered his beard for a moment before responding.
“She’s straight in our path and I don’t want to divert unnec-
essarily. Mr. van Piet, bring us a bit closer so we can see how

Martin ’s Inferno

199

she’s armed and give her a chance to raise her colors. But keep
ours down for the moment, too. When Mr. Martin can make her
out, give full stop and wait for my order.” The cap’n paused to
survey the crew. “In the meantime,” he called out, “get to the
locker and arm yourselves. Shot your guns and light the slow
matches. I want to be cleared for action before we’re within a
league of her. If she looks hostile, we’ll fire a volley to let her
know we’ve got enough to wound, but if it looks to be a fight,
we’ll be runnin’.”

Van Piet nodded, squinting. “Ye heard ’im, lads! Get t’yer
business an’ quick!” He tossed the ship’s locker key to a
nearby sailor, and the forty- odd men scattered and threw
themselves into action readying the Wind Mill to fight or flee.
I continued to watch the sail ahead.

Gradually, we closed. After some time, I could make out
the ship well enough to report more. “Still no colors, sir!” I
shouted. “Damn! She’s well-gunned for her size, sir. I count
eighteen, if not more. She’s pointed our way, but . . . well, I
don’t see any activity on her deck.” Looking down I could see
that the cap’n had his own spyglass out, and the polished
walnut handles of his pistols were sticking from his belt.

“She’s heavy in the water,” the cap’n said. “Full cargo.
What is she up to? Mr. van Piet, run up our colors and let’s see
what she thinks of it.” The bosun shouted an order and I ran
the Dutch flag up the pole. We waited a few moments.

“Nothing, sir,” I called. “Nothing at all. I can’t see any
movement on deck. Sails are still at one -quarter and no
maneuvering.”

The cap’n sighed. “It’s either a trick or she’s adrift. But I
don’t understand why she still has her cargo if she was taken.
That means she probably got lost and ran out of drinking
water. Awful way to go.” He looked around for a moment. “Mr.
Thomas, we have forty tons of room left in the hold, do we no?”

The purser stumbled forward, a scrawny chap with a
loose white shirt draped over him like a bedsheet. “Yes, sir.
That’s right.”

“Very well. This is what we’ll do. Mr. van Piet, run out the
guns and let’s approach her from the rear starboard quarter.
If she starts to come about, blast her with the bowchasers and
then swing and we’ll give her the broadsides. If it’s no trick
then we’ll send a man aboard to see what she’s carrying and
make sure it’s not a plague ship. Mr. Martin, watch that deck.
If you see as much as a rat squirm, I want to hear you bellow
like a stuck pig.”

“Aye!” I cried.

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As we crept nearer, I could still see no movement on the
ship. The Wind Mill skirted wide and then steered in to
approach from the rear. As we approached gun range I began
to discern what looked to be bodies littering the deck. “I can
see crew!” I announced. “Sprawled out — they’re not moving.”
We closed cannon range but still there was no sign of any life.
Using my spyglass, I strained to get an up-close view. The
forms were indeed bodies — at least a score or more were in
plain sight. As expected, there wasn’t anyone at the helm nor,
thankfully, anyone tending cannon. “She’s adrift, sir,” I con-
firmed. “Crew’s dead or playing it well.”

We were now close enough that we could see the sails and
rigging quite clearly. Any thoughts of things being a ruse van-
ished, for the disrepair of the sails and the flapping of unse-
cured ropes told an unequivocal story. No captain, however
crass, would allow his ship to fall into such a state, and it
looked like it had been that way for some time. The partially
furled sails drooped like loose jowls on to the deck. The parts
that caught wind were fluttering uselessly with several large
tears. My eyes dipped to the hull and I could see the ship’s
name announced in bold black letters on the stern: Inferno.

“Mr. van Piet,” called the cap’n sharply. ‘Take us abeam.
Commence with grappling and send a man to scout.” The
bosun went about the task of coordinating three grapple teams
to lay hold of the Inferno as we steered directly up beside her.
We could all see the deck clearly now, and the sight was not
kind.

Bodies lay strewn hither and thither, frozen in the throes
of death. Some were on top of each other. It was obvious that
the crew had met with violence: cutlasses, pistols, or other
fighting implements could be seen near every corpse, some
still clutched in stiff fingers. Ghastly wounds marked every
figure we could see, a sight made all the worse because the
bodies had been in the sun for some days, perhaps even
weeks. Corpses slouched on the deck or the rails, or with
backs up against the masts. I was thankful that I was up in
the nest and elected not to use my spyglass for a better view.

“No plague ship, at any rate,” huffed the bosun. “Mr.
Fontaine!” A bald, burly, ear-ringed man dressed in loose red
trousers stepped up. “Have a look in ’er hold an’ see if there’s
anythin’ worth havin’.”

“Aye, skip,” he nodded. The grapple teams had laid hold
of the Inferno and the men were now hauling on the ropes. As
the ships drew close, Fontaine pulled a heavy cutlass from his
belt and stepped on to the rail. When the gap was only a few

Martin ’s Inferno

201

feet, he sprang onto the Inferno, blade raised, gaze sweeping
forth and back. He kicked a body at his feet and it rolled over
to reveal a badly decomposed sailor with a gaping hole where
his stomach should have been. The exposed skin was a leath-
ery brown with a sick, greenish hue. The edges of the wound
were jagged, and a lone, short length of reddish intestine
hung out like the tongue of a panting dog. Fontaine spat and
kicked the body again to roll it back over. Grimacing, he
padded to the center deck, giving the other corpses as wide a
berth as possible. He glanced back at van Piet, who nodded,
and then Fontaine tucked his sword into his belt and disap-
peared down a ladder into the hold.

The cap’n propped one foot on the rail and rested his elbow
on his knee. “Mr. van Piet, I’d like to know what happened
here, whether we take her hold or no. If you’d be so good, fetch
me the log. You know what and where to look for it.”

“Sir!” the bosun acknowledged. He strode up and hopped
his wiry frame onto the Inferno without delay. In unspoken
agreement, though, he paused and turned just as the cap’n
tossed him one of his pistols. Van Piet snatched it out of the
air and headed for the aft cabin.

The cap’n watched him go and then turned to survey the
rest of the crew still on board the Wind Mill “Stay sharp,
men! Keep to your duties and we’ll see what’s to be found.
And sailor — ” the last was directed at me up in the crow’s
nest “ — keep a good eye out. I don’t want to be surprised by
even an insect sculling a twig while we’re lashed up like this.”

“Sir!” I nodded, already training my eye on the horizon,
where the sun was beginning to set.

Several minutes passed, during which the crew couldn’t
help but peer over at the contorted, rotting bodies littering the
Inferno ’ s deck. I was a spectator as much as anyone, despite
the fact that I was supposed to be on lookout. It was hard to
ignore the dead, especially the ones whose decomposing faces
grimaced skyward or those whose stiff extended arms and
splayed fingers pointed toward me. Some looked like they had
been picked at by crows, which was odd considering our dis-
tance from land.

The scene was troubling, and the men below shifted
uneasily. Most of my crewmates were experienced sailors and
had stared death in the face a few times, but there was also a
reason that they were sailing on a merchantman. They pre-
ferred to avoid the sorts of battles that turned a vessel into a
floating ossuary.

Worse than the sights of death was its smell. Even up

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high I could sense it and it was very distinctive — like molding
sugarcane mixed with bilge, all riding the full, salty breeze.
One of the decklubbers hung his head over the rail and was
sick.

The old Dutchman van Piet emerged from the aft cabin of
the Inferno at a quick trot, pistol gripped in one hand and a
leatherbound book in the other. He gave a quick glance over
his shoulder, so fast as to almost be imperceptible, and con-
tinued his trot all the way back to the Wind Mill The cap’n met
him and took the book.

“Damn, sir,” spat van Piet in his scratchy tone. “The cap’n
is still in there — or what them bugs have left of ’im. Looks like
’e went down defendin’ ’isself, as ’e’s not alone.”

“Very good,” grunted the cap’n, leafing through the jour-
nal. As he scanned the pages he mumbled to himself, much
too quietly for me to hear at my post. While he read, I looked
over the Inferno a bit more.

It indeed possessed a full complement of guns. Some of
them were twelve pounders, by the look. And other than the
rigging, which had gone to seed, the ship appeared to be well-
outfitted. The hull was in good shape, built to run fast and
recently careened, if I wasn’t mistaken. I glanced straight
across at the crow’s nest opposite me and noticed the corner
of a black flag draped over the lip.

“Pirates!” I cried, causing an instant stir on the deck below.
“I mean, sorry sir, I mean they are — or were — pirates, sir.
They’ve black colors ready for use.”

“Thank you, Mr. Martin,” the cap’n called a touch irritably.
“That’s plain enough in here.” He continued reading to himself,
his brow furrowing. “Something strange has happened on that
ship. I don’t like it. Unless Mr. Fontaine has found the treasure
fleet itself, I believe we should cast off at once.”

As if on call, Mr. Fontaine used that moment to appear,
climbing out of the hold. He stopped at the top of the ladder
to cup one hand over his mouth. “She’s loaded well, cap’n!”
His voice sounded a little higher pitched than normal, and I
could tell he was panting slightly. “More than the usual store
of powder — a right keg you could call her. Sugar, rum, and two
dozen chests of I know not what. But ...” Fontaine hesitated.

“Out with it,” prodded the cap’n.

“Damn but if something terrible didn’t happen down
there. Uhhh, Cap.” Fontaine’s voice now quite noticeably
revealed his dread. The fact that he was afraid carried a mes-
sage that his words couldn’t; Fontaine was rowdy, bull-headed,
and fearless, whether he was in a storm or a fistfight. Seeing

Martin ’s Inferno 203

him anxious put the crew even more on edge than they already
were.

“Under the circumstances,” began the cap’n, but at that
moment burst a hideous droning sound from over on the
Inferno , originating very near Fontaine. It was a like the wail-
ing cats make when they’re wet, but much deeper. I could see
Fontaine look down the ladder back into the hold and he
stiffened.

“What in God’s name — ” began van Piet, but he was cut off
by Fontaine who actually screamed.

The muscular sailor leaped almost convulsively off of the
ladder and, in his haste, didn’t quite make it fully back onto
deck. He landed with his legs still dangling into the hold and
frantically scrambled to get up. From my vantage, I could see
down into the hold a bit, but not to its depths. I saw there was
some sort of movement behind and beneath Fontaine, but not
what it was.

Fontaine got both legs swung up onto the deck and
sprung to his feet. Just as he turned back toward the Wind
Mill, though, a hand shot up from the hold and locked around
his ankle. With enormous force it yanked Fontaine’s foot out
and the big man fell onto the deck hard. The fall knocked him
senseless, and while he lay there another arm reached out
and took hold of his other ankle. Because I was up high, I
could see part of the man who had Fontaine. It was a sailor
hanging on the ladder — or what had once been a sailor —
dressed in a loose white shirt that looked strange because the
man’s skin appeared noticeably greenish against it. More dis-
turbing, it was from that sailor’s gaping mouth that the
hideous moaning came.

The jaundiced, droning sailor began hauling Fontaine into
the hold, which roused the big man from his stupor. Fontaine
took one look at the green-tinted arms securing his ankles
and, to his credit, remembered the cutlass in his belt. He
somehow freed the blade, and as he was being drawn in, he
raised a muscled arm and struck. It was a cruel blow, and
even given Fontaine’s awkward positioning the stroke was
delivered with enough fear- driven strength that it shore clean
through the man’s arm. Two things happened then that shook
us all to our core.

The man did not scream, and he kept pulling with his
remaining arm.

Fontaine froze for just a moment. Then, as the realization
took him, he turned his head to regard the cap’n with wide
eyes. A look passed between them I could not see, before

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Tyler Sigman

Fontaine turned back to the freakish sailor and let him have
it with the cutlass again, this time at the point where the neck
meets the shoulder. I winced at the sound of metal lodging in
bone, but it affected Fontaine’s attacker less. The one-armed
thing gave a superhuman heave and my crewmate was ripped
from the deck and vanished into the hold. There was a tremu-
lous, high-pitched scream from where he disappeared, but it
cut off sharply and, for the fleetest of moments, silence reigned.

The crew, who had been transfixed by the unnatural
events unfolding before us, seemed to regain themselves.
There was shouting from every quarter of the deck, and the
cap’n and bosun struggled vainly to make themselves heard
above the din. Some men rushed off in a panic; some grabbed
their weapons; a few just stood staring dumbly at where
Fontaine had last been seen.

For my part, I craned in the nest to try and peer down into
the Inferno's hold. Unfortunately, I had not the right angle and
was partially blocked by the one-armed greenish man-thing
that had now returned on the ladder. His presence had some-
how been overlooked for an instant as we all panicked. He
reminded us, though, by opening his maw and issuing another
awful cry. His jaw worked up and down, and he wailed with
what sounded frighteningly like slurred speech. As he moaned,
he clambered up off of the ladder to stand erect on the deck.

It looked like nothing but a corpse, the walking twin of
any of the rest of the figures spread over the Inferno's deck.
The man had skin hanging from his face in patches, with sim-
ilar wounds upon his arm and his legs. His color was indeed
greenish in hue, but mottled with smears of brown, black, and
tan. My stomach convulsed just from the look of him. It was
the utter defiance of nature’s laws, given form and voice right
before us!

The figure ambled forward with an unsteady gait, half
stepping, half shuffling. A dark ichor drizzled out of the stump
of its left arm to spatter on the deck.

“The Devil is upon us!” cried the cap’n. His next words
were cut off, though, as to our utter dismay more voices joined
in the droning moan. With slow, ponderous movements, the
corpses on the Inferno's deck began to rise!

To a man, the figures stirred as if shrugging off whatever
facade of death they had adopted. Rotting arms pushed up
rotting torsos, and tendons baked stiff by the sun crackled as
they flexed to move limbs that were, in some places, little
more than white bones lashed together by the coffee-colored
remnants of muscle.

Martin ’s Inferno

205

Right beside the Wind Mill, the disemboweled sailor
Fontaine had kicked when first boarding the Inferno groaned
as he rose to his feet. He paused for a moment, looked blankly
down at his gut, and grasped at what remained of his
intestines. Then his chin raised up and, in a spastic half-fall,
half-leap, he threw himself over the rail onto van Piet. The
dead sailor grasped the bosun’s head with both decaying
hands and pulled the man’s face toward his jaws, which were
snapping feverishly. Van Piet howled once before the pair
went down in a heap.

“Cast off! Cut the lines!” came the cap’n’s strong, bellow-
ing voice. His effort was valiant, but many of the crew were
senseless beyond hearing. Any semblance of organization on
the Wind Mill vanished; sailors tripped over themselves and
their mates in a mad dash to get away from the murderous
creatures. A limited few kept their wits enough to hear the
cap’n’s call, and they saw the logic in it at once.

A sandy-haired Frenchman that I had shared a cask with
in Curasao jumped on the rail and actually managed to hack
through one of the grapple lines. Another man — the carpenter,
I thought — tried to do the same thing but had less fortune. As
he stepped up to use his blade, one of the moaning devils met
him and swung a greenish arm with awful force. I heard a
crack and the carpenter pitched over like a felled tree. The
dead thing’s arm hung at a new angle, but that did not distract
it as it collapsed on its prey. Other dead men approached the
rail, and my fellows fell back, none desiring to reach the grap-
ples badly enough to brave the creatures.

The cap’n saw this and knew what it meant. “Fight! To
arms, lads! Fight! Fight!” he hollered, even as he drew his
remaining pistol and leveled it at one of the Devil-creatures
crawling onto the rail. There was a report and then a wet thud
as the pistol ball found its mark squarely in the thing’s fore-
head. The monster pitched over, slid between the rails of the
two ships, and splashed into the sea.

The deed inspired momentary hope in my fellow sailors —
those who had not yet fled the fight altogether, at least — and
most of them drew their weapons. They didn’t exactly rush
forward to meet the walking dead men, but the fiends were
coming forward on their own so the fray was joined regardless.
As I watched the combatants come together, some impulse —
perhaps cowardice, perhaps wisdom — stopped me from climb-
ing over the nest and hurrying down the rigging to do my part.

For a moment my heart leaped with hope as my fellows,
armed with blades and the lust for survival, hacked away at

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the dozen dead things that had managed to reach the Wind
Mill's rail. The creatures made no effort to dodge or otherwise
save themselves from harm, and as such the blades found
home and did wicked damage. If their foes were animated by
anything less than foul devilry, my mates would have won
through in the first moments, as cutlasses bit deep into rot-
ting arms, legs, shoulders, and chests. But devilry can with-
stand such assaults, and accept such wounds as would have
been instantly fatal to a normal man. So rather than destroy-
ing them, the noble assault merely drove the dead things a
few steps back. They rallied and came on again.

A cacophony rose up from the deck. Shouts mixed with
those terrifying moans, and all was punctuated by the solid,
dull thunk of blades lodging in flesh. I saw one of my crew-
mates gain momentary success: He clove clean through a
dead thing’s neck, and the body slumped to the deck and did
not rise. His victory was the exception, though, for the other
dead men shuffled on despite the most grievous wounds to
their bodies.

My heart still held foolish dreams, for we outnumbered
the monsters by over two to one. But then I happened to
glance back at the Inferno and was greeted by a numbing
sight. More creatures rose up from the hold — and, hark! out
of the cabin emerged another handful of the devils. One of
them was dressed in an indigo-dyed coat, tan breeches, and
black boots. His accouterments marked him as the Inferno's
cap’n. The coat was stained dark all over the front, the source
a slash across his gut. Through the rent in his shirt I glimpsed
the greenish flesh on his bloated stomach. His face was even
more spectral; he had no nose at all and the entire right side
of his jawbone was visible, no skin covering so much as a fin-
ger’s width of it.

The dead cap’n staggered forward like the rest.

As I watched him, horrified, presently came the screams.
It was just one initially — the first of the remaining living to fall
prey to the ambling tide. My eyes left the dead cap’n in time
to see a mate curled up like an infant while a dead thing fell
upon him, rending and biting. Then came another scream; a
sailor had lodged his cutlass in his foe’s chest and as he
struggled to rip it free, the devil seized his head between both
hands, the grip like a vice. The man’s yell cut off as the vice
tightened, and I saw him shake and then go limp.

And so I witnessed, frozen and helpless, the overwhelming
of my crew. And unlike our enemy, when one of my mates
took a wound, they went down and stayed down. After a time,

Martin’s Inferno 207

I slunk into the nest. The outcome was clear, and I hadn’t the
courage to witness it unfold to the last.

I stared up at the peaceful blue sky and watched a puffy
cloud float across it. Below came sounds of death: clanking,
stomping, screaming, and the telltale moaning. I heard a
report; the cap’n had perhaps reloaded his pistol, or maybe
someone had taken the other one from van Piet’s body.

How long I listened, I know not. I know only that gradually
the clamor slowed. There was less shuffling. Less shouting.
Less screaming. But in its place rose the unmistakable
sounds of eating. It could have been a tavern full of sailors
smacking their lips and diving into juicy mutton. Then even
the moaning slowed and quieted, although the dead things
still made noise. It was just more like cats purring contentedly
instead of howling.

T T T

I can’t say I slept, but I remember little until the next day-
break. The mind has ways to defend itself, and my tenuous
hold on sanity was, perhaps, retained by shutting out the hor-
ror that was so undeniably close.

As the sun rose, though, I revived. I listened for a long
time; hours maybe. The only sounds I heard were that of the
gentle breeze flapping the sails, and that of the creaking of the
two ships bumping easily together.

When the sun burned high overhead, I finally got up the
nerve to peek over the edge of the crow’s nest. One look told
me everything I needed to know. The deck was littered with
bodies, painted with blood. Nothing appeared to be moving,
which confirmed that my crew was gone, but didn’t tell me
anything about the state of the enemy, who were also
sprawled out in apparent death. I knew better than to assume
that they were inanimate. I slid back down, sighed, and closed
my eyes with my forehead resting against the wood. The sun
beat down on my back.

Another night came and passed while my mind searched
for options. I was cramping heavily in the nest. My throat was
parched and my stomach was growling despite the nauseating
feast that had occurred on the deck below. The hard truths of
the situation were evident: I could either die sitting on my arse,
or I could climb down and probably die the grisly death of my
companions. Neither option was palatable.

Wasting away in the sun, however, is more than unpleas-
ant, and the innate survival instinct all living things possess
forced me into quick action. In the heat and near delirium of

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dehydration, I decided that I had misinterpreted what had
happened nearly two days prior. Maybe the pirates had
planned some deliberate ruse to frighten us, and that the two
crews had simply slaughtered one another. Or perhaps the
pirates had been stone drunk with rum, which might explain
why they were all passed out as we approached, but then
came on unflinchingly after they awoke.

Both theories were foolish, but how much more foolish than
believing that the dead had risen up to prey upon the living?

So with those hopeful thoughts racing through my mind I
climbed stiffly over the nest onto the rigging. My legs nearly
gave out, weak and stiff as they were from being bent double
for hours interminable. I just clung to the ropes for a few
moments, which was just as well, since that gave me time to
observe the deck below and make certain that the figures
didn’t react to my movement. Thankfully, there was no stir,
and, as my blood returned to my feet, I made my way down.
As I began to descend I caught a glint of light off the small
knife still stuck into the crow’s nest wall. I reached back in
and pulled it out, placing the blade between my teeth.

I had no great plan, truthfully, other than to collect some
food and water and, with luck, make off with a skiff and leave
the Hell-ships behind. One man can’t sail a square-rigger, so it
was either set off in a rowboat or wait for unlikely rescue
aboard the Wind Mill. I was not keen to spend any more time
in the proximity of the horrific creatures, so I decided to take
my chances on the open sea.

My hands and feet moved in familiar patterns as I made
my way down, while my head remained almost fixed watching
the figures below. Some inner instinct railed against my
approaching the danger rather than receding from it, but
there was naught to be done for it. Presently I lowered my feet
down onto the firm deck and breathed a sigh of relief mixed
with sorrow when still I saw no bodies move. I took the blade
from my mouth and tucked it into my belt.

Up close, the scene was even more horrific than I had
expected. Everywhere were bodies, clotted blood, and offal. It
seemed that most or all of the dead things from the Inferno had
crossed to the Wind Mill to take part in the assault. The dead
of both ships were slumped together in small piles, and I real-
ized with fresh revulsion that for each newly made corpse there
were one or more rotting bodies arrayed on top of it. My crew-
mates had been ravaged like deer taken by wolves. There was
no more denying it, no matter that I needed some small hope
intact — the men of the Wind Mill had been feasted upon!

Martin ’s Inferno

209

Indeed, some of the greenish corpses were as yet still posi-
tioned in the act. It was as though they had eaten their fill and
then collapsed at the table, sated. Dried blood stained the
eaters and the eaten and, in more than one case, jaws still
clamped down on the limbs of my fallen fellows. The sight
alone would have been enough, but coupled with the unbear-
able stench, I bent over to lose my meal. With my stomach as
empty as it was, I could only gasp in convulsions.

Straightening, I noticed that my cap’n’s body was a scant
two yards away. My throat swelling, I took instant notice of
his waterskin, still slung about his sprawled frame. I cau-
tiously knelt down and cut it off, watching for any sign of
movement. After stowing my knife again, I raised the skin and
gulped greedily. The water was warm and musty, but felt like
rain over the desert of my raspy throat.

I all but emptied the skin, and as I lowered it at last, my
eyes drifted to the cap’n’s booted feet, next to which was the
journal that van Piet had taken from the Inferno. Driven by
curiosity, I retrieved the book. If the log’s final entries held
some clue as to what had happened, I needed to know.

I read slowly. The combination of my average skill with let-
ters, a groggy head, and the pirate cap’n’s sloppy hand made
for tough going.

March 2: Took a Flute today. Fine lot of sugar to add
with our spoils already. Five men went On Account.
Dumped the others after some sport.

March 9: Beached her on a little cay NE of Inagua,
location marked. Careen and rewater. Will visit the
locals also.

April 7: INFERNO is ready. Better shape than the vil-
lage. Rum came out most of the past week. Had our
way with folk. Had to put the blade to a few on account
of them protecting their women. Mr. Clive took a wench
that gave him a wicked scratch. Says she gave curses
on him and he lost his head and gave her the knfe.
Good the ship is prepared as the men are ready for
sailing with eyes set on a take.

April 11: Clive has taken ill — damned ill. Scratches full
of the Devil and he looks low.

April 13: Clive went yesterday, screaming the whole
time. Bit and scratched a few mates on his way out.

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Bastard. We tossed him over but those he clawed are
fevering. Spirits are low.

April 14: The men are uneasy. One at least is mad,
says he saw Clive hanging on the bowsprit in the
moonlight while he was on watch. I gave him a few
lashes for his lies. Six now are fevering with scratches.
Damn but I think we’ll head for land. St. Kitts if we can
sneak in perhaps. Put in there and see a doctor. Maybe
divide the take even which is a damned shame as the
ship and men were ready for more.

April 16: A madness is upon us! We are making two
leagues if any. By God if the winds do not rise then I
fear the result.

There were no more entries.

Uneasily, I tucked the book under one arm and picked my
way aft toward the cabin, where I planned to bag some food
for the boat. Weaving between bodies, I did my best both not
to touch them and also not to see them. As I approached the
passageway, I heard a sudden sound that turned my blood to
ice: a low, mournful moan from just behind me.

I whipped around in fright and, in doing so, managed to
turn my ankle and fall, the logbook thumping to the deck.
There beside me was one of the newly dead, a sailor I would
surely have recognized if not for his half-eaten face. He was
struggling to push himself up, and his eyes fixed vacantly on
me while his mouth emitted the dreaded moan. I stared face
to face for a moment, breathless. The sailor reached out a
hand at me and his jaw started working. I scrambled franti-
cally backward, kicking at his arm while I tried to stand up.

The groaning came from more throats now. The bodies
were all stirring. As I gained my feet again, so also were many
corpses ponderously attempting to do the same. Thoughts of
returning to the nest crossed my mind, but I could see that
the way was blocked. In fact, all routes to safety seemed cut
off by rising dead, including the way into the cabin. Like a
rabbit surrounded by hounds, I looked desperately for an
escape. The nearest thing to an opening was in the direction
of the Inferno. And if the enemy’s crew had all migrated to the
Wind Mill for the feast, their ship would be the safer of the two.

I sprinted toward the Inferno just as the creatures closed
in. They moved fast for all their awkward appearance, and I
was nearly taken. Just as things closed in from either side, I

Martin s Inferno

211

leaped forward over the rails. A raking, hot sensation tore
across my gut, and then I tumbled onto the Inferno's deck.
Stumbling up again, I ran my hand along my stomach; it came
away bloody. I looked down to see four long scratches. The fin-
gers of one of the demons had found purchase as I jumped.

I didn’t have long to consider it, and the sight of the dead
sailors giving chase drove me to instinct. I leaped onto the rig-
ging and scaled it faster than I had ever done before. Despite
the turned ankle, I found myself up at the Inferno ' s nest
almost before I realized what I was doing. Perhaps some inner
wisdom had driven me there, for it seemed unlikely that any
of the awkward beasts could negotiate the ropes.

I clambered up into the basket and slumped in a heap,
exhausted. There was a black flag draped inside — the same I
had spotted days ago, in another life it seemed. On it I lay and
lamented my poor fortune, chest heaving, ankle throbbing,
and gut burning where the scratches were. The moaning rose
below, and I could hear that the beasts had followed me over
to the Inferno, but I had not the courage to peer over. Panting,
a faintness overcame me and I closed my eyes.

T T T

A low moan, coming from very near my position, woke me.
My head felt thick and my eyelids were crusted shut. When I
forced them open, the first thing I noted was the burning sun,
high overhead. The next was an even greater burning in my
stomach and sides. Dazedly I prodded the scratches with my
fingers. The wounds were inflamed, crimson, and a kind of
pus leaked from them. But I had not a moment to dwell on
them, for the moaning returned and with it came a clunk
against the crow’s nest!

My mind raced and I kicked myself up stiff, back against
the wood. Was it possible that the bloodthirsty things had
negotiated the rigging? To my greatest despair yet, my fears
were confirmed as a pale hand appeared and grasped the lip
of the nest. I watched in horror as a patch of blond hair
appeared and then wide, blank eyes and a familiar hook nose.
I knew that face, even though it was now contorted and mis-
shapen, with places on the cheek and chin bloody and chewed
away.

“Syd!” I ejaculated. It had once been Syd, but no recogni-
tion beamed in his eyes — only hunger. He hooked one arm
over the lip to pull himself up, and reached out with his other.
Fear paralyzed me for a moment, which allowed Syd the
opportunity to grab hold of my left shoulder. His finger clasped

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Tyler Sigman

me with terrible force. I could feel his fingernails digging into
my flesh and then his mouth opened, drooling.

“Uhhhhhh,” Syd moaned.

“No!” I cried, a rejection of all that had occurred. On its
own, my right hand found the hilt of the carving knife, still
secreted in my belt. I drew it forth and plunged the blade with
all of my remaining strength into Syd’s familiar face, a face
that I had seen creased in laughter so many times. I felt a
sickening crunch and Syd pitched backward, taking the knife
with him. For a blessed instant there was silence, and then I
heard a dull thump as his body struck the deck below.

Another groan sounded close at hand. Looking over the
lip, I saw an awful sight, but I was too tired, too numb to feel
the horror it should have inspired. The rigging below held two
dozen of the creatures, or more, arrayed at various heights. I
had been only partially correct in my initial assumption: the
things weren’t able to scale the ropes very well. But that didn’t
stop them from trying. As I watched even, a creature halfway
up slipped, then toppled over backward to crash to the wood
below. Within seconds, it was stirring again, rising up to try
again.

Despite their clumsiness, some of the beasts had made
impressive progress. The closest was a mere three yards from
reaching my hideout. As I looked down at him, he groaned
more loudly and reached out. In utter defeat, I turned away —
and found myself confronted by a most unexpected sight: an
approaching frigate off the port bow! I blinked and rubbed my
crusted eyes, unbelieving. The massive ship remained.

She was flying English colors proudly and fearlessly. The
water sprayed off of her bow and I marveled at her beauty: the
lines of her hull, the bold markings of her sails, the imposing
power of her arms. As she approached shot range I could make
out a mob of men, presumably soldiers, arrayed on her deck.

For a fleeting moment, I thought that I had found my res-
cue. But then the words of the pirate cap’n’s journal suddenly
flashed through my mind: scratches full of the Devil . . .

No, my fate had been sealed. The angry red wounds on
my side throbbed, as if confirming it.

With that realization, a clarity descended. I had indeed
found my rescue. Or at least my salvation.

The frigate was approaching fast, headed straight in; it
had little to fear from two ships lashed together. With fading
strength, I rose to my knees and laid hold of the black flag
draped inside the nest. With a painful heave I threw it out,
then stood and reached up to grasp the flag runners. Staring

Martin ’s Inferno 2 1 3

skyward, I started to pull, arm over arm, until the colors had
been raised.

The response was predictable and immediate. As I ran out
the black flag, the frigate, a pirate-hunter by the look of her,
changed course and swung about to present her broadsides.
I heard a now-familiar moan from below.

Gazing out over the water, my eyes lingered for a peaceful
moment on the massive cannon battery, and the frantic little
figures milling about the barrels. Then my knees gave out and
I collapsed, my head catching the wood as I went down. My
ears rang, and my vision blurred. I blinked a few times and
my sight returned to me. And then I saw it, etched into the
planks at the bottom of the nest — a crude carving of a naked
woman, not unlike Syd’s attempt on the Wind Mill I heard
myself chuckle softly.

The rumble of cannon sounded far off, like from ships
dueling on the horizon. A small part of my mind, a very tiny
part, was still racing — thinking, thinking. How much powder
did the Inferno carry? Had it spoiled while she lay adrift? How
many guns did the frigate present? Cannonballs inflight glow
red, red like coals. . . .

I soon had my answers, and my salvation.

The ship shuddered below me as the first volley bit into
her, and then all was bright.

Me mory Rem ains

STEVE ELLER

The face in the bathroom mirror isn’t dead. It’s not alive.

I stopped living a few months ago; I know that. But I
thought I was still alive. Now too many signs tell me other-
wise. I’m not dead, though. I know dead when I see it.

Dead comes quick. It’s a sudden thing, and a certainty.
That’s not what I am. I’m a slow unraveling. A day-by-day dis-
solution. Joints with a brittlestick crack, and muscles hang-
ing like rotten fruit. Acid burning at the back of my throat,
and ulcers in my mouth that won’t heal. Breaths coming fewer
at a time.

I twist the faucet and splash water on my face. Hot, cold,
it doesn’t matter. I can barely tell the difference anymore. I
wipe my cheeks with my fingertips. My skin feels sticky, like
half-melted wax. I watch my reflection, waiting, but no flesh
is carried away by the dripping water. There’s darkness below
my cheekbones, and under my eyes. But I could pass for alive,
if someone looked without care. And they never care.

I unbutton my soiled shirt and touch the bruises between
my ribs. The skin is cool and sunken, like clay molded by a
sculptor’s touch. I can’t shake the notion that something is
missing. I lay my hand flat on my chest, and I feel nothing.
Before I slept, my heart was pulsing at a frantic pace. Now, it’s
silent. I drop the shirt to the floor and turn out the light.

My apartment is dark because I keep the blinds closed.
Passing through my living room, I wonder if it’s day or night.
But it’s just a casual thought. Time only matters if someone
is waiting for you. Or thinking of you.

The blankets are still bundled on the couch. This is
where I sleep. Or just sit, watching television. There are still
a few channels that come in, even with a disconnected cable.
But most times I just watch the gray dots swirl. I listen to the
static until my mind gives out and I drift away. I don’t like
sleeping in a bed anymore. Sometimes I leak in places, and I
hate staining the sheets.

I sit down on the couch and wrap the blanket around my
shoulders. I’m not cold, but it’s a comforting thing to do. The
refrigerator hums in the kitchen, and I try to recall the last
time I ate anything. It seems it was a long time ago, but it’s

Memory Remains 2 1 5

hard to say. There might still be something in the refrigerator,
blackening or withering to dust. Maybe there’s something like
that, inside of me.

Closing my eyes, I lean back against the couch. I swallow
a deep breath, by reflex. But it never gets past my mouth. My
throat is closed like a fist. I gag, and something flies out of my
lips. A tooth, dotted with black blood.

T T T

“I’m not your daddy.”

It’s something I say to him sometimes. A joke, a meaning-
less thing. He always wags his tongue at me, then runs off.
Maybe it comes out differently this time, poisoned by the alco-
hol in my blood. Or maybe there’s no reason to assume things
will always be the way they were.

He gets deathly quiet. Tears well in his eyes, but he dashes
away before they trickle down his face. This isn’t the way he
usually runs, with his bony arms jacking and his head thrown
back. His hands are clenched across his stomach, and his
chin touches his chest.

I get up, to go after him, but it takes a minute to get my
bearings. A few too many beers in the hot sun. The world
spins in a whorl of bright green grass and white vinyl siding
and blue popsicle sky. By the time I find my balance, he’s
around the house and gone.

But it doesn’t take long to find him.

He’s in his castle. It’s actually an old shed, too small to
keep the lawnmower in. I was going to knock it down, but he
said he wanted it. So we painted it gray, like stone, and drew
meandering lines to look like mortar.

Matt is inside, holding his little plastic sword. His helmet
and armor are beside him on the ground, like he tossed them
away. Sir Matthew. That’s what he calls himself when he
defends his castle. The Lord of Light. When he plays this game,
he won’t answer unless you call him Sir Matthew Light.

“Hey,” I say. “You know I didn’t mean anything.”

“You never mean anything.”

Tears glaze his eyes, pupils as dark as melting chocolate.
His hair is copper, with streaks of white and gold. His lip quiv-
ers, and he bites it to keep from crying. Six years old, and he’s
already struggling to keep it inside. Maybe he learned it from
me, when I wasn’t looking. When I was trying not to cry at his
mother’s funeral.

“You know I’m your daddy, don’t you?”

He starts to pull away when I reach for his face, but he

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Steve Eller

doesn’t. Light skin to match his hair, and a spray of freckles
across his nose. His cheek is warm from playing in the sun.

“Not my real daddy,” he says.

It doesn’t matter if he says it to hurt me. He can’t punish
me any worse than I’m punishing myself. My beer buzz fades,
replaced by a perfect clarity.

“Yes, I am. We’ve been together since you were two years
old. I married your mommy. And gave you my name. I’m your
daddy.”

His eyes are deep, and wide open. He wants so badly to
believe it. I catch myself biting my own lip.

“So don’t say it anymore. Okay?”

“Okay, it’s a deal. Never again.”

T T T

On a whim, I lift back the edge of the curtain and open the
blinds.

It’s daytime outside, a few wispy clouds in the sky like run-
ning cream. I start to open the window, for a breath of fresh
air, until I remember I don’t breathe anymore. It’s just as well.
The window overlooks the alley, and all I’d get is a noseful of
dumpster stink.

I see, at the mouth of the alley, people strolling down the
street. Dressed in suits, dressed in rags. It must be warm.
Perfect pink skin sticks out from shirt sleeves and the legs of
shorts. I see flat stomachs, some twinkling with belly rings.
The sun glistens on bare skin, making it golden and soft, like
butter. My stomach growls.

Thinking about warm, shiny flesh makes my mouth ache.
It’s like a hunger, what I remember of hunger. I want that skin
against my lips, inside my mouth. There’s no way I could eat.
I can’t even force a breath down my throat. But I still want it.

I close the blinds, and drop the curtain. Outside isn’t for
me anymore. I belong in my little dark apartment, alone with
my thoughts. With my memories.

Falling back on the couch, I grab the television remote. My
skin splits in a crescent around my left thumb. That’s no
surprise. I keep the sewing kit close these days. Hazy ghosts
appear on the screen, their voices more buzz than words.
Bathed in artificial light, I thread a needle.

T T T

I haul the last of the shed to the curb. It’s just a pile of
rotten wood now, waiting for the trash truck to come. Matt
hasn’t set foot in his castle for years. Sir Matthew Light
doesn’t save the day anymore. Oak trees aren’t hungry giants

Memory Remains 2 1 7

now. Fire -breathing dragons have become overgrown hedges
again.

Matt spends most of his time saving himself now. I’ve
never seen a more accident-prone kid.

I remember the time he tumbled down the stairs of the
back deck. He came limping into the house, wide-eyed and jit-
tering. One side of his body was twisted, and my first thought
was: He’s had a stroke. He just looked at me, like he couldn’t
even speak. I put him on the floor, and searched him all over
for blood. Then I grabbed my car keys. But the emergency
room doctor, who looked about the same age as Matt, told me
it was just bruising and muscle pain. A little shock. He gave
me some painkillers.

I’ve never known anyone else bom with ingrown eyelashes.
They get long, curl back, and irritate his eyes. The first time it
happened, I didn’t know what to think. Some sort of seizure,
maybe, that made his right eye flitter like a wounded bird.
Every year or two, I have to take him in for laser surgery.

One night as he sat down to dinner, his ears were bright
red inside. It was the middle of summer, so it couldn’t be from
playing outside in the cold. He kept scratching at them, and
they smelled faintly sour. So we ended up at the emergency
room again. They took a swab, and disappeared to cook the
germs in some machine. When they came back, they told me
the last thing I expected to hear. That my son had a yeast
infection in his ears. The nurse smiled as she handed me the
doctor’s prescription for some lotion.

It’s always something with that kid. More than the usual
bumps and scrapes a ten-year-old boy accumulates. Like the
time he played soccer without shoes, and managed to miss
the ball and kick his toes through a chainlink fence. A half-
dozen stitches.

After depositing the last of the shed curbside, I take off my
splintery gloves and wipe the sweat from my forehead. It’s
time for my shower. Matt will be home from school soon. And
we have an appointment at the doctor’s. This time, it’s his
stomach.

T T T

It’s hard to walk. The joints in my legs are jelly-soft. I don’t
know how much longer they’ll support me. But I have to go
outside. I have to get closer to them.

This is the third time I’ve struggled down the back stairs
to the alley. It may be the last. I hope I can make it back up
to my apartment this time.

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Steve Eller

I can’t smell the people walking down the street. My
tongue pools like cold soup in the bowl of my mouth. I couldn’t
taste them. But I want to be near them. A hunger, one that
has nothing to do with smell or taste, resonates in my head.
Maybe not a hunger; only an appetite. But they draw me, and
I feel them, like another sense is rising in me. A new aware-
ness, like a mold spreading in the decay of my body.

It’s getting dark, but I don’t dare go any further than the
alley’s mouth. I’ve seen my reflection, and I’m a horror.
Huddled in my shadow, I could reach out and brush one of
them. I could grab one, and press him against my tongue. But
I’m weak, and barely able to stand. I might not be able to
catch one at all. Maybe a child. Like the little girl with milky
skin and hair like straw, walking alone. I could fit her entire
hand in my mouth. I could close my lips around it. Children
disappear all the time. She’d just be one more.

But I won’t. Because she’s alone. If I decide, some time, to
take one for myself, it would have to be a child surrounded by
loved ones. Who held a parent’s hand, or still wore a paper hat
from a birthday party. Whose face would burn in someone’s
mind long after the milk carton was crushed and thrown
away.

I stagger up the alley, toward the back door. Today isn’t a
day for having. Just for wanting. Just for knowing that I could
have what I want, and still leave the child with what she
needs. It’s the most anyone can hope for.

T T T

“Oh, blueberry muffin,” Matt says.

His eyes are huge. He’s so excited, telling me what the
orderly brought for breakfast this morning. Like he found the
muffin in a foil-wrapped present last Christmas. His last
Christmas. Doctor Horner says to expect some random emo-
tion, some disorientation. It’s the ammonia, building up in
Matt’s brain.

It’s almost like a mercy. His body manages to confuse him,
even as it devours itself.

He smiles, and his gums are a ghostly white. His blood is
going other places now. Mostly to his stomach. For almost a
week, he didn’t use the bathroom. When he finally did, his
waste was an oily black, from the blood that should have been
somewhere else in him. Warming him, keeping him alive.

“Daddy?”

Matt looks straight at me. Somewhere in the haze of dying,
he finds a moment of lucidity. I see it in his eyes.

Memory Remains 2 1 9

“Hey. Do you need something?”

“No,” he says. “But I have to ask you something.”

It’s like he knows it’s his time. The doctor says it will be
within the next twenty-four hours. Matt’s liver and kidneys
are “on the knife’s edge.” Fourteen years old, and I hear it in
Matt’s hollow voice. He needs to put his affairs in order. The
affairs of a child.

“Okay.” I hope he can’t see me clenching my jaw to keep
from screaming.

“You won’t forget me, will you?”

A cold hand reaches down my throat and steals my
breath. The world doesn’t seem real somehow, but it feels too
real.

“Of course not, son. Never.”

“Good.”

He’s calmer now, resting his head and shutting his eyes.
His chest rises and falls beneath the dull white sheet. It seems
impossible that it will just stop soon. That his heart will slow,
and his life will slip away. In a single moment of time, he’ll be
gone.

“How could you even dream such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just that . . .”

“What?”

“Mom’s gone. I don’t have any grandparents left. I haven’t
been at school in the last year or so. I just wonder if anybody
will remember me.”

“I will,” I say.

I can barely get the words out my burning throat. I touch
his fingers. So little flesh left on his bones. Plastic tubes taped
to his hand. His fingers don’t tighten around mine. His eyelids
tremble, and I know he’s drifting away from me again.

“Blueberry,” he says.

T T T

Coming apart at the seams.

It’s something my mother used to say. It was just a cliche
for her, but it’s my reality.

The threads don’t hold anymore. My bloated stomach
expands a little more each day, and the skin splits and tears.
The staple gun in my toolbox helps, but the flesh parts like
water around the metal after a time.

The window is open, and I hear a tangle of voices outside.
So much warm skin, so near. The appetite slithers through
me, as much in my head as my belly. I don’t need to close my
eyes anymore to let my imagination loose in the darkness. I

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Steve Eller

couldn’t see when I woke up this morning, and my eyes might
be empty black sockets. I could touch my face, to learn, but
it’s too much of a chore to lift my hands.

I’d love to go outside, and be close to the passing people
one more time, but I can’t. My limbs are too fragile, my muscles
too weak. If I stand, my bones might collapse like a rotten scaf-
fold. My body might wander away, in a melting witch trickle.

Curled on my couch, I don’t know what will happen to me.
All I know is that I can’t die. If I let myself go, there will be no
one left to remember Matt. And then he’s gone. Really gone.
Not even a memory remaining. That’s when someone is gone
for good. When there’s nobody left to remember him.

Make the most of what you have. That’s another thing my
mother used to say. I can’t string words together that would
etch themselves in someone’s mind. I can’t paint so that
people would never forget their tears. All I have is my flesh.

The power must be off. I don’t hear static crackling on the
TV. The refrigerator is quiet in the kitchen. But I listen to the
people on the street, and it keeps the darkness away. The
darkness waiting to creep in at the edges of my mind. It’s icy
cold, and has a hunger of its own.

I have the people. I have my appetite. I have my memories.
And there is no pain.

The rent is paid for another two months, with the last of
the money from selling my house. Our house. When the rent
runs out, someone will break down the door and come in. To
see what’s become of me. To learn the source of the smell. I
wonder what they’ll find. And what they’ll do.

It doesn’t matter.

I’ll cling to a chip of bone, or a wisp of hair. If that crum-
bles to dust, I’ll keep hold. I won’t die. And I won’t forget.

The Little Death of M r. Phillips

J. ROBERT KING

A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but
as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of
what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality,
and desperately mortal.

— Measure for Measure, IV. ii. 143-146

Although Mr. Phillips died on the morning of Tuesday,
October 6th, he decided to go to work anyway. It wasn’t that
he was out of sick days; he’d not missed one day during his
twenty- three years at the State Farm corporate office on Main
Street. It was just that he had a lot of work to do, and he
didn’t feel that bad.

And he hadn’t noticed he was dead.

It happened in the shower that morning, he realized later.
As the lukewarm spray billowed out over him, beading on the
lime- whitened tile, Mr. Phillips felt an odd, empty pain in his
chest, a pain localized just left of his narrow sternum. He
gasped a tiny inhalation — smaller than the breath he took
that morning when Mr. Williams in the apartment next door
had scalded him by flushing the toilet — and brought thin, soft
fingers up against a sagging pectoral muscle.

His tongue clicked once, and he shook his head slightly.
That second over-easy egg this morning had been one extrav-
agance too many. His face flushed with the last, failing pulses
of his heart. Then his skin went mottled and white.

He allowed himself a brief, circumspect moan of pain, his
hand wrapping feebly about a fold in the plastic curtain.
That’s when he must have died. Looking down, he saw that he
was fouling the tub. This sort of accident hadn’t happened
recently, not since that terrible flu in ’78, after his father died.
Ashamed but now strangely incapable of blushing, Mr.
Phillips tried to halt the purgation. He couldn’t. Instead he
stood, legs braced, hands clinging to the shower spout like
some New Yorker on a long commute, and he waited it out.

It was a miracle that he didn’t fall, being dead. It was a
miracle he could move at all, what with the cessation of synap-
tic impulse, the slow shut down of mitochondrial energy pro-
duction, the minute jags of pain he experienced as each cell in

222

J. Robert King

his body silently died. Indeed, if Mr. Phillips had gotten better
grades in high school biology, he would have known to bow to
fate. Instead, the successful insurance accountant didn’t even
notice his own death. Like most of the citizens of Normal,
Illinois, he was driven on by a powerful, inexorable force.

Ignorant oblivion.

So, Mr. Phillips washed once again and stepped unaffected
from the tub onto a waiting towel. He dried off in his rou-
tinized fashion: face, hair, left arm, right arm, chest, back,
legs. His body felt oddly numb, and he had to steady himself
twice against the tiger lily wallpaper.

All the while, his attention focused on the turbid tub. For
a moment, he considered calling Mrs. McCreary with the
white lie that Mr. Williams’ toilet had backed up into his — Mr.
Phillips’ — tub. After all, the deaf retiree had flushed in the
middle of Mr. Phillips’ shower, despite their agreed-upon
timetable. But, seeing the fouled water drain away, Mr.
Phillips’ better nature prevailed. Wrapping the towel about his
waist, Mr. Phillips hunted down the catbox scoop he had
bought for the cat he never adopted. Five quick swipes saw
the mess cleaned up.

Then Mr. Phillips noticed his feet. They were reddish blue,
bloated and smooth like lavender galoshes. He remembered
reading a pamphlet from the home office that swollen feet
were a symptom of myocardial infarction. “One day off the
Shredded Wheat,” he murmured disappointedly. He lifted a
sausagelike finger to the flat of his wrist and felt for a pulse.
He felt nothing: no pulse, no wrist, no finger on the wrist.
Being honest, though, he never could find his pulse.

The rebel side of Mr. Phillips cried out that he should treat
himself to a sick day. Thoughts of Spencer for Hire and Cheers
drifted appealingly into his mind. Quickly the successful
insurance accountant reasserted himself. He had too much
work to do.

Minutes later, he sat on the bed, fully clothed save for his
black wingtips. There was a dramatic disparity between the
size of his stockinged feet and the size of his shoes. Lifting one
of the heel-worn Weyenbergs, he noted the ragged Dr. Scholl’s
pad and nodded in self-deprecation. He couldn’t blame his
feet for rebelling. Still, that’s what shoe horns were for.

+ + T

As it turned out, Mr. Phillips’ death didn’t affect his work
efficiency. His coworkers, between cups of coffee, didn’t notice
the corpse in their midst. Mr. Phillips finished fifteen claims

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 223

and made one phone call to confirm a name spelling. Aside
from his death, the morning had been a good one.

The next clue to his decease came after a stroll to Annie’s
Diner on Monroe. Annie — an oven-shaped Polish woman with
a bleached mustache and slightly unlevel eyes — greeted him
with the same abusive affection she had directed his way for
nineteen years.

“Phi’p’s plate,” she hollered through the orders window to
her forty-year- old son, who arched his lean body over the
stove. The irritable cook made a gesture that may well have
been obscene but meant nothing to Mr. Phillips as he settled
onto his customary stool. Annie reached a flaccid arm up to
change the channel on the black-and-white TV that hovered
over the breakfast bar. She turned and slapped Mr. Phillips
heavily on the arm. “How the hell are you, Norman?”

Norman nodded respectfully and said, “Fine.” For the first
time in nineteen years, the whack from her fatty hand hadn’t
stung. He missed the sensation.

“Whoa,” cried the woman, fanning her nose. “Your breath
stinks.”

“Does it?” Mr. Phillips asked meekly, holding a hand over
his mouth. He breathed out, realizing he couldn’t remember
taking a single breath since that morning in the shower. He
consciously filled his lungs. “I can’t smell anything.”

“You’re lucky.” The woman laughed, turning to wait on
another customer.

Mr. Phillips, embarrassed and confused, began to consider
the fact that he wasn’t breathing. He looked up at the radium-
faced clock that rattled above the orders window and decided
to see how long he could go without air.

Seven minutes and thirteen seconds later, his meatloaf
arrived. Staring down at the limp string beans, Mr. Phillips
drew his first breath. He felt he ought to, but smelled nothing.
Lifting the utensil pack, he drew out his spork. Its elegant
lines looked odd beside his puffy, purplish fingers. He consid-
ered his hand, took another breath so that he could sigh, and
edged the legumes onto the implement. The beans felt rub-
bery and tasteless on his lips and tongue — no surprise there.
Mr. Phillips lifted another pile of the stuff to his mouth. It
didn’t even feel hot. The steaming meatloaf and the reconsti-
tuted potatoes felt the same.

Mr. Phillips leaned forward and deposited the large mass
back onto his segmented plate.

A slug on the shoulder announced Annie’s return. “What
you doing?”

224

J. Robert King

Looking furtively up toward the woman, Mr. Phillips said,
“I think something is wrong.”

“You’re still paying,” Annie barked, slapping the check
down in front of him. “And I charged you for the breath mints
in advance.”

4 4 4

The rest of the workday passed without incident, except
for complaints about his breath. Mr. Phillips tried the breath
mints, but they sat, dry and inert, on his tongue. In fact,
when a customer called and Mr. Phillips started speaking, the
mint on his tongue slid with a minute scratching noise and
lodged against his stiffened uvula. A neatly crooked paperclip
hooked the blockage and allowed the call to proceed to a tidy
conclusion.

That night, remembering his near-trauma at Annie’s
diner, Mr. Phillips skipped the Swanson Swiss Steak he habit-
ually ate on Tuesdays. He turned on the television and settled
numbly in his stuffed chair. Seeing the familiar opening to
Wheel of Fortune, Mr. Phillips inhaled again in order to sigh
contentedly. After a day of surprises, a six o’clock session of
the Wheel was always soothing.

The Wheel was like life, so full of puzzles. No, the Wheel
was better than life: There were solutions and fabulous prizes.
Even parting guests left with Turtle Wax or Open Pit. On the
Wheel, everyone was kind and bystanders cheered. If only life
were like that.

But as Mr. Phillips watched that majestic wheel spin, the
disappointments of the day coalesced around him: the chest-
pain, the soiled tub, the tight shoes, the dry meatloaf, the ces-
sation of breath and heartbeat. Slowly, in a lurking and unob-
trusive way, he realized he was dead.

Mr. Phillips very rarely had emergencies: He’d patiently
organized his life so as to prevent them. Even now, he wasn’t
certain his untimely demise constituted an emergency.

As a bearded dentist from Boulder guessed at the grand
prize, Mr. Phillips called the State Farm advisory nurse.

“Hello, this is Mr. Phillips,” he said, but was put on hold
before he even finished the second word. The woman’s curt
voice had been replaced almost immediately by a pleasant
Barry Manilow song. Mr. Phillips waited.

Someone on the television was talking about vinyl siding
and was very convincing.

“State Farm nurse,” came a voice like crinkling paper,
“may I help you?”

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 225

Mr. Phillips tried to clear his throat, but merely wheezed
dryly. “This is Mr. Phillips; I called up about ten minutes ago.
I think I’ve died.”

“Very funny. Look, mister, we’re busy tonight — everybody
waits his turn. Now what’s your problem?”

“My heart stopped this morning,” Mr. Phillips replied, feel-
ing a dull panic swell his gut, “and I haven’t breathed all day.
But when I do breathe, my breath is terrible.”

“What do you mean you haven’t breathed?” the woman
asked. “You congested?”

“No,” Mr. Phillips clarified. “I just don’t need to. And my
heart’s not been beating.”

“Look,” the woman replied impatiently. “This advice line is
for sick people, not dead people.”

The phone buzzed a dial tone. Staring at the receiver, Mr.
Phillips set it down gently. He stood up, shut the television off,
and strode to the window to look outside. It was beautiful
tonight, lights glowing in the velvety dark. A street cleaner
rumbled past, its brushes stirring up dust.

Medical insurance wouldn’t cover death — any insurance
accountant would know that — but he also had life insurance.
He could collect the premium. His mind traced back over the
policy. Upon his death, $100,000 would go to Clara, the
accounting secretary. She was a bright spot in the workaday
world of ledgers and policies. She didn’t even know he had
named her beneficiary. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her
face.

Mr. Phillips’ thoughts took a darker turn. How could he be
dead and still be moving about? Shouldn’t he just lie still, like
they did on Hill Street ? Shouldn’t he have fallen in the bathtub
and lain there under the pelting spray until Mrs. McCreary
complained that he was taking all the hot water and making
the heater rumble and thump like a man shoveling a grave?
Shouldn’t he have been taken to the emergency room and
shocked with pads and put through that big round machine to
find out what had happened?

“Maybe it’s my soul,” he told himself, a wistful look cross-
ing his stiffened features. Perhaps his soul hadn’t left his
body. But why?

Memories of his third grade teacher came to mind. With a
helmet of black hair, she stood before the class and told them
all about the Indians. Indians believed the soul of a dead
brave fled through his mouth, and if the mouth stayed closed,
the soul couldn’t escape. Mr. Phillips’ sagging jowls turned
grim. Perhaps he’d not opened his mouth wide enough when

226 J. Robert King

he died, and so his soul, afraid of getting snagged, simply
stayed.

Mr. Phillips almost made the hasty mistake of opening his
mouth there at the window. It wouldn’t do to let his body be
found crumpled on the floor. Better to be in bed, in a nicely
pressed suit.

Setting his lips firmly together, Mr. Phillips headed to his
closet. He slid the doors along their scraping metal tracks,
drew out his Monday-Wednesday-Friday suit, and laid it on
the hide-a-bed. It took some work to get his shoes off; he had
to unlace them and pry with the shoehorn. He slipped off his
Tuesday-Thursday suit, and dressed himself for the next day.
At one point, he almost began to whistle, which would have
been catastrophic, leaving a half-naked body. And what a
body. His feet and backside were black-purple, his legs were
reddish, his belly green, and his face white. It would be like
Mr. Williams to be found like that, but not Mr. Phillips.

The struggle with his shoes convinced Mr. Phillips to be
found in his stocking feet. Stumping to the mirror, he checked
himself over, remembering to zip his fly only at the last. He
padded back toward the hide-a-bed, but slowed beside the
dining table. Pulling a Post-It pad from the phone stand, Mr.
Phillips penned a note, carried it to the bed, and lay down,
placing it atop his chest.

This was not a suicide.

He didn’t want the claims adjusters denying Clara her due.

He tried to close his eyes but realized he hadn’t blinked all
day. His eyeballs were dry and leathery, his eyelids like
rawhide. Who would care if he were fully dressed if his eyes
stared like deviled eggs?

Climbing up, Mr. Phillips drew a glass of water and drib-
bled it over his staring eyes. His eyelids still wouldn’t move.
Twenty- five Wesleyan Trojans tumblers later, Mr. Phillips gave
up, lying on the hide-a-bed with one eye closed and the other
squinting rakishly.

He opened his mouth.

He felt no change. Purposefully filling his lungs with air,
Mr. Phillips released a long, forceful breath, an emphatic
moan that rocked the couch against the wall. The sound
evinced pounding from the other side, and a shout that ended
with the preposition “off.”

His soul wouldn’t leave.

He lay that way, mouth agape, for a long while. Still no
change. At last, discouraged, Mr. Phillips got up and trudged
to work. If he’d have to wait for his soul to leave, he might as

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 227

well finish off those ledgers. In his haste, the immaculate Mr.
Phillips forgot to put shoes on his feet. It didn’t matter. They
looked like patent leather.

T T T

Next day, the bustle started around 8:15 a.m., and col-
leagues occasionally poked their heads into Mr. Phillips’ office
for a quick hello. Bob Leones of marketing even held a ten-
minute conversation about a photo shoot, never noticing that
Mr. Phillips neither moved nor spoke. Bob finished with,
“Thanks for all the ideas, Phil, and don’t go working yourself
too hard. You gotta stop with these all-nighters. Go home.
Take a shower. Get some rest.” Turning, just before he passed
from the door, Bob reiterated, ‘Take a shower.”

Despite his stiff silence, Mr. Phillips’ soul still hadn’t
escaped. His body now was rigored. He wondered how perma-
nent this would be; he still had eleven invoices staring him in
the face. He wished he’d stopped by the bookstore and gotten
a book on death. Of course, then he would have gotten rigor
mortis there, and the bookseller would have thrown him out.
It was funny to think of the skinny shopkeeper hefting his —
Mr. Phillips’ — rigid body overhead and throwing him through
the glass display window. That seemed unlikely; he’d more
likely put Mr. Phillips on a dolly and dump him with the
stripped books.

Clara happened in, carrying a cup of coffee. She was so
beautiful and alive, her shoulder-length hair curled inward
about her neck, a smile twinkling on her pear-shaped face.
Even through his leathery eyes, she was beautiful. Bending
her thick thighs ever so slightly, Clara set the cup down.
“You’ve not been out of your office all morning. I thought you
might like this.”

Mr. Phillips offered wordless thanks with his wide, staring
eyes.

Clara’s face was tinged pink, embarrassed for her intru-
sion. She slipped through the door and shut it.

During the following hours of stiffness, Mr. Phillips devel-
oped a new theory: He wasn’t dead, but only insane. This
cheered him greatly. Insanity posed an attractive middle
ground between living — with all its contingent surprises and
looming emergencies — and dying — with all its humdrum days.
Madness might well be the best mental state. He may have
been mad all his life and not realized it until he stopped
breathing and his feet turned black.

The cessation of rigor mortis by three o’clock supported

228

J. Robert King

the notion that he wasn’t really dead. Flushed with a new
vision of himself in a strait jacket, Mr. Phillips rose stiffly from
his chair and left his office. He proceeded to Clara’s desk.

With what he considered to be a touch of panache, he
leaned over her work station and fought the urge to say, “I’ve
always loved you, Clara, and now that I am insane, I cannot
be expected to hold my tongue and pine in silence.” He had,
in fact, rehearsed this speech, but instead asked, “Is Mr.
Lance in?”

Charley Lance was the personnel counselor. Some said he
himself was insane. Mr. Phillips hoped that Mr. Lance would
not only confirm his insanity, but engage in a pleasant com-
munion of unhinged minds, as well.

Without looking up from her humming computer, Clara
nodded. She seemed miffed about his earlier silence.

Relishing the stone-hardness of her face, Mr. Phillips
almost blurted, “Forgive my silence, but I had thought I was
dead, though now I know I am only insane. Are you busy this
evening?” Instead, Mr. Phillips took the moral high road and
breezed past Clara to the elevator, whose button he pressed.
When it stopped and he stepped on, the other workers disem-
barked. Mr. Phillips was pleased. He didn’t want the whole
company to know he was going to see the personnel counselor.

Mr. Lance had his office in the second basement, beneath
an arterial cluster of pipes and conduits. The small, recently
drywalled room had no windows, being thirty feet down, but
Mr. Lance had compensated by installing wilderness posters
back-lit by florescent lights. In general, Mr. Phillips was
pleased to see the florescents; they’d help hide his mottling.
Also, the cigarette smoke, which hung like a white, choking
curtain just inside the door, would mask his putrid breath.
Aside from the back-lit posters, the room was filled with lean-
ing bookcases and stacks of books, including one musty pile
of detective pulps from the thirties.

It was one of these that the therapist was reading when
Mr. Phillips knocked quietly on the open door. The counselor
looked up myopically from the tattered pages, his eyes strain-
ing through Coke-bottle glasses and thick smoke. Mr. Lance
had a thinning crown of grayish hair, narrow eyes magnified
by the glasses, a bony face with a pessimistic mouth, and
hands like Don Knotts’.

Mr. Phillips felt an immediate soul-link.

After an uncomfortable pause, Mr. Lance asked in a
smoker’s voice, “May I help you?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Phillips, taking a tentative, uninvited

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 229

step into the room. “I am Mr. Phillips. I’ve thought for the last
two days that I was dead. Indeed, I spent a most unproduc-
tive morning in a supposed rigor mortis. At any rate, I need
you to assure me that I am only insane and not dead, so that
I can make the appropriate adjustments and return to my
desk, undiminished in my role as an accountant.”

Half way through this effusion, Mr. Phillips extended his
clammy, discolored hand in a gesture of friendship. The ther-
apist did not notice, glancing between his book and the ciga-
rette pack he’d been slowly unwrapping. Tipping back the box
lid, he slightly compressed the bottom of the package, caus-
ing a healthy cluster of cigarettes to splay out. Then, setting
the pack down, Mr. Lance snatched out two, lit them, and
extended one to Mr. Phillips.

“No, thank you. I would, but I’ve not been breathing for
the last two days.”

The therapist blinked, disbelieving — not so much at the
claim of breathlessness, but at the refusal of a cigarette — and
motioned Mr. Phillips into an orange vinyl seat opposite him.

“You say you are dead?” the man asked pleasantly, sink-
ing back into a creaking chair.

“Yes,” Mr. Phillips replied.

“What makes you think that?”

“I had a heart attack in the shower yesterday and fouled
the tub, which I rarely do,” Mr. Phillips replied with an unac-
customed alacrity. “Since then, I’ve not had a heartbeat, or
breathed, or eaten, and my work — though still on schedule —
has lost its one-time luster.”

“No heart, no lungs, no stomach, bored at work,” the
man considered, piling up the evidence. “Those things alone,
coupled with the smell, seem to indicate you are dead.”

Mr. Phillips smiled mildly, his dry lips cracking. “But, I
should be less active if I am dead, right? I am just thinking I
am dead, but not really.”

Mr. Lance shook his head in a sudden pique of temper
and took a deep drag on both cigarettes. “Why does everyone
come into a therapist and tell him what they want him to say?
You don’t want to hear my opinion; you want me to say you’re
loony. Well, you’re not. You’re dead, not insane.”

“But how could I be dead and still move around?” Mr.
Phillips asked.

“Lots of ways,” the therapist assured, tapping the ciga-
rette pack to prepare another one. “Haven’t you ever heard of
ghosts, vampires, mummies, zombies?”

Mr. Phillips felt chastised for his lack of imagination.

230

J. Robert King

“Perhaps,” Mr. Lance continued, “you’ve been taken over
by Satan. Or perhaps your body is experiencing some sort of
complex cadaveric spasming, which so simulates your day-to-
day activities that we all — you included — have been fooled into
thinking you’re alive. Or perhaps you’re some kind of macabre
puppet of the gods.

“The point is — ” and here Mr. Lance leaned forward dra-
matically, lighting a third cigarette “ — disability pay is for
people unable to work. You obviously are able. Case closed.”
And, to indicate finality, the therapist snatched up his novel
and began reading.

Mr. Phillips stood, suddenly uneasy. “I don’t believe you.
I can’t be dead and still be walking about.”

Sighing irritably, Mr. Lance stood and walked around the
desk to the client. “Say, ‘ah.’”

Mr. Phillips complied.

Wincing and holding his breath, the therapist jabbed his
smoldering cigarette quickly into Mr. Phillips’ mouth. He drew
out a sizzling white object, which was stuck, squirming, to the
cigarette’s glowing tip. It was a maggot, arching its tiny seg-
mented back as it burned.

Mr. Lance wore a bemused smile, “Give up the Binaca,
Mr. Phillips, and switch over to Raid. Also, you’ll want to get
some Vaseline to keep your skin pliable. If you could start
sleeping in a freezer, set at around thirty- five degrees, you’ll
last longer, too.”

Wordlessly, Mr. Phillips turned on his heels and walked
from the room. He decided not to stop by Clara’s desk. Madness
might be sexually attractive, but decay certainly was not.

He left early that day, after checking with his supervisor
and logging his time on the sheet. He gave himself credit for
only two of the ten nighttime hours he had spent, since eight
of those were in rigor.

On the way home, he dutifully stopped at the library to
find references that might address his condition. When he
explained to one of the library aides that he was dead and
wondered what he ought to read, she pointed him toward
Jean Paul Sartre and Woody Allen. Mr. Phillips took neither,
settling on the handy Layman’s Guide to Forensic Medicine.
The book had a scarred exterior — Mr. Phillips even fancied he
saw idle scalpel marks on one comer — but it had plenty of pic-
tures and a chatty, friendly tone. Throughout the book’s
pages, cartoons ran along the margin, showing a nervous lit-
tle Tim Conway- figure fleeing from an ominous, black-robed
skeleton with a scythe.

231

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips

That night, as the majestic Wheel spun in its rattling cir-
cles, Mr. Phillips read about what would happen to his body
next. There was a concise section called “Rot Around the
Clock Tonight” that spelled out the stages of decay:

Stage 1 — Post Mortem Lividity (1-2 hours): Blood
pools and coagulates in the lower members of the body,
turning them first reddish, and then purple as the blood
is depleted of oxygen .

Stage 2 — Rigor Mortis (14-30 hours): Decomposition
begins with a temporary period of body stiffness and
general inflexibility.

Stage 3 — Maggots (24 hours): If exposed for any
length of time to flies, the body exhibits maggots in the
early stages of decomposition.

Stage 4 — Putrescence (3-5 days): Decay grows
potently odoriferous in three days, unless heat or bac-
teria accelerates the process, or cold or lack of bacteria
decelerates it.

Stage 5 — Bloating and Blisters (1 week): Gases swell
the gastric system, blisters of water and air form on the
skin, epidermis is sloughed off, discoloration of livid
sections (purple-black) and abdominal sections (green)
deepens. Decomposition enters advance stages.

Stage 6 — Total Decomposition (5-9 weeks): Under nor-
mal, nonwinter condition, flesh will disappear entirely
in about two months, though bones may remain for
decades or centuries.

Mr. Phillips skimmed down to the screened box at the bot-
tom of the page:

To remember these remarkable changes, just say to
yourself, “ Please Reserve My Plastic Body Bag.
Thanks.” The first letters of the words in this sentence
are the first letters of each stage: Post mortem lividity,
Rigor mortis, Maggots, Putrescence, Bloating and
Blisters, Total decomposition.

Mr. Phillips repeated the sentence until he could remem-
ber each stage, his sandpaper tongue rasping over dry teeth.
That’s when he remembered the maggots, and realized he had

232

J. Robert King

forgotten the Raid. Rummaging through his kitchen cabinets,
he found only an old ant trap. He set the device in his mouth
for the duration of Wheel, but it caught nothing. He tried
brushing the maggots out with Crest and an Oral B, but the
little worms seemed unaffected by the frothy blue foam. For a
while, he directed a blow-drier down his throat, hoping to dry
out the creatures. But he had no real success until he
splashed some Skin Bracer into his mouth. Opening blacken-
ing lips, Mr. Phillips peered into the mirror to watch the crea-
tures die. In the sloshing, greenish pool of aftershave, the
white forms writhed in their death throes until, at last, they
were still. Mr. Phillips spat them out in a chunky stream and
smiled into the mirror.

He would need to take extra hygienic measures in the next
five to eight weeks so as not to offend his coworkers. Showers
and aftershave would see him through until the flesh had
mostly dropped away and only a skeleton was left. Then, he’d
wear a baggy overcoat and slacks and a wrap around his
skull, like the Invisible Man. He could tell people he had acci-
dentally fallen into a vat of acid. “No,” he chided himself. “At
that point, I should simply tell them I’m dead.”

+ T T

The next day passed without incident, save that Mr.
Phillips’ coworkers repeatedly closed his office door. After
work, he returned the library book, photocopying the pages he
needed. In a croaking voice, he sang: “Please reserve my plas-
tic body bag. Thanks.” He strolled to the Walgreens on North
Main and loaded up with health aids: petroleum jelly, corti-
sone, mercurochrome, Pepto-Bismol, Gas-X, Band-Aids,
Visine, throat spray, cotton balls, gauze, slings, needles, rub-
ber gloves, a dental mirror, and a twenty- four pack of swivel-
head cartridge replacements. He even bought some potpourri
and two steaming jars — one for his office, and one for his
apartment. Armed for a life of decomposition, Mr. Phillips
strode back home, whistling his new song.

The only disappointment that day was discovering that
his left pinky finger had dropped off somewhere between the
drugstore and home.

4* T T

Next day, Clara had to leave early because of vomiting and
a hacking cough. Mr. Phillips was worried about her. He’d
talked to her for some fifteen minutes before she left — well,
whispered more than talked, since his vocal chords were
starting to atrophy.

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 233

When he went to Clara’s apartment that night, she pre-
tended not to be in, though he saw the lights go out after he
knocked. He left the roses on the stoop.

T + 4*

On the following morning, the bloating and blisters stage
was moving along ahead of schedule despite — or perhaps
because of — the Pepto-Bismol he had forced down his throat
with a gravy injector.

Before heading out the door, he got an angry phone call
from Mrs. McCreary saying that Mr. Williams had complained
about the stench and what was he keeping in that apartment
anyway — a dead body? Mr. Phillips had to smile and tried to
explain his predicament. The landlady might have been
impressed, but his voice had given out entirely.

At work, a memo mysteriously appeared over lunch, this
one emphatic about cleanliness. Mr. Phillips knew this memo
had been addressed to him, exclusively. It was unfair atten-
tion, given his condition. In an uncommon fit of verve, Mr.
Phillips stalked into the accounting supervisor’s office and
asked to borrow a pen and paper. The supervisor rudely
excused himself, hand over his mouth. Stultified, Mr. Phillips
returned to his office, noting with some embarrassment that
he had left a thumb on the supervisor’s desk.

This humiliation, coupled with uncontrollable and contin-
uous belches and flatulence, caused Mr. Phillips considerable
distraction in finishing his work.

T T T

Next morning, before he was even out of the shower, a loud
crash came at the door. Turning off the water, Mr. Phillips lis-
tened fearfully as two sets of footsteps — a light and agile pair,
and a shuffling set — moved through his apartment.

“Mr. Phillips!” came one of the voices, rattling in his frag-
ile eardrums. “Sheriffs office, Mr. Phillips. We have a warrant
to search the place.”

Gripping the plastic curtain for the second time that week,
Mr. Phillips tried to call out that he would provide complete
cooperation, but his voice wouldn’t work. He decided against
stepping out of the shower and drying off, figuring he could
merely wait for the search to finish. Inhaling and exhaling
slightly, just for nostalgia’s sake, the accountant listened as
drawers were slid open, cabinets rummaged through, the
hide-a-bed opened and closed, windows and doors tried. He
wondered what they could possibly be looking for.

Then, someone came into the bathroom and shouted back

234

J. Robert King

to his colleague: “Smell’s really strong in here. And there’s a
lot of moisture in the air.” Footsteps approached the curtain,
and a hand latched onto the other side. Mr. Phillips’ wide,
unblinking eyes opened another millimeter in shock.

The man yanked back the curtain, his blue and black uni-
form blotching in Mr. Phillips’ dry eyes. “Jesus,” he choked
out, stumbling backward and falling to his backside next to
the sink. He turned, half-crawling, half- scuttling out of the
room, shouting all the way to his partner, “I found the body.
It’s so stiff it’s standing up in the shower.”

Mr. Phillips stepped out of the tub onto the waiting towel
and began drying his maggoty face and clumped, thinning
hair. By the time the two officers rushed into the bathroom,
Mr. Phillips had fastened his towel a bit high to cover his
green, bloated stomach and shriveled, blackened scrotum.

The other officer saw the man moving about and whacked
his partner on the back of the head, “It’s the old man, you
idiot.” Turning to Mr. Phillips, he nodded. “Sorry we disturbed
you.” He dragged a crumpled warrant from his jacket, flashed
it once in front of Mr. Phillips, and backed out of the bathroom.

Mr. Phillips tried a final time to speak, to tell them he
hadn’t minded and that they were simply doing their jobs. All
that emerged was a loud, prolonged fart.

That day was full of surprises. When Mr. Phillips returned
from his lunchtime walk, he found a small pink note sitting
on his chair, paperclipped to an envelop. He held the note and
trembled, not even able to read it with his dimpling eyes. The
paper appeared so clean and smooth in his boil-covered,
three -fingered hand.

Twenty-three years without missing a single day, not even
after he had died. . . . Mr. Phillips’ mind reeled. This was an
emergency, one from which he might never recover.

He left the State Farm office on Main Street, a cardboard
box under his arm. Only now did Mr. Phillips allow himself
the weary, shambling gait of a zombie. As he shuffled back to
his apartment, he mentally reviewed his own insurance poli-
cies. Who could argue that his death had not become a dis-
abling condition?

The source of rent money became moot when Mr. Phillips
reached his apartment door. Another slip hung there, this one
white. Its top contained the large letters E-V-I-C-T-I-O-N, which
explained the padlock attached to his door.

He stood there a long while.

This was, in truth, no great tragedy. He didn’t need an
apartment. He didn’t breathe or eat, sleep or feel pain, did not

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 235

need companionship, could not benefit from showers. . . . The
loss of job and home in the same day was rather liberating.

The lack of a television would be a bother, but he could
always find one somewhere to watch.

Mr. Phillips wandered the streets. On occasion, he passed
other homeless folk. Some looked in worse health than he,
and Mr. Phillips wondered idly if they might be dead as well.
All he had to think about was the rhythm of his swollen feet
and the next four to six weeks of total decomposition.

He happened on an overflowing Salvation Army bin and
rooted around until he found a suitably concealing cloak, a
second pair of pants, a scarf to cover his face, a platinum-
blond wig, and some Garfield sunglasses. He stowed these all
in a plastic sack he found blowing across the street and kept
them in reserve for later stages. He wouldn’t want to foul them
now with his blisters and maggots.

In time, he wound up outside Clara’s door. Reaching out
to knock, Mr. Phillips pulled up short. If she peered out, she
would be sickened by his appearance. The wig and glasses
would only make it worse. Producing a scrap of paper and a
pen from the breast pocket of his shirt, Mr. Phillips scrawled
a brief note:

Dear Clara :

Please forgive my intrusion, but I’ve run into some
misfortune. Yd like to talk this evening, if you are free.

I’ll knock and leave this note, and then wait around the
corner of the hall for ten minutes. Thank you for your
kindness.

— Norman

Folding the sheet once, he slid it partially under the door
and knocked. Without waiting for a response, he shuffled
down the hall. He hoped he would hear the whisper of paper
sliding beneath the door, the rattle of the locks, and a cheer-
ful voice cry, “Oh, poor Mr. Phillips! Please, come inside!”
Rounding the corner, he stood in waiting stance, anxious to
hear those sounds.

Two hours later he left. She had taken the note, but she
never called out for him.

T T T

That was a bad night. Mr. Phillips spent his time in Miller
Park, wandering the abandoned playgrounds, walking over the
bridges that spanned the manmade waterways. He approached
the park zoo and peered in at the lion enclosure.

236

J. Robert King

If he could not remove his soul from his body, perhaps he
could remove his body from his soul. Mr. Phillips began to
climb the bars, but then stopped. What if the lion ate only a
single leg before getting full, and left the rest for an embar-
rassing discovery in the morning?

Mr. Phillips climbed down, went to a park bench, and sat
to think. What other options lay open to him? A jet engine? A
blast furnace? Just to get near them, he would need a peer-
less disguise. The platinum-blond wig and Garfield glasses
seemed inadequate.

Dreams of disintegration vanished from Mr. Phillips’ lique-
fying eyes, and he noticed that the sun was setting. He hadn’t
realized it had risen until he remembered ghostly and vaguely
pedestrian forms moving among his sad thoughts. He must
have sat there for a full day — and in the middle of the bench,
he added in mild rebuke. Stiff, he slid to the end and sat,
through that sunset and the next.

That’s when the angels came.

They weren’t angels, exactly, though Mr. Phillips’ dimpled
eyes and idle mind cast them in the role. Their voices on his
papery eardrums seemed to speak in angelic tongues.

“Stilleer,” said the lead one. “Ain’tmoovdin threedays.”

“Sgottabby dead,” said a second, “lye kai toljew. Jestaka
wiff.”

“Corsees dead. Cummawn,” said the third, with a gurgling
laugh. “Lessjesdew it. Thisselby fun.”

Mr. Phillips wished he were Catholic so that he would
know more about angels.

They began to anoint him. They lifted a red and yellow
cube that flashed metallically, and water gushed over Mr.
Phillips’ head. It dowsed his clothes. He saw a few maggots fall
from his face and writhe fitfully in his lap, and he thought of
“the lake of fire where the worm does not die.”

The angels flung a tongue of flame on his lap. An instant
later, a heavenly inferno engulfed him. In the angry, whoosh-
ing glare, Mr. Phillips finally saw the faces of the three
angels — young, handsome, Latino. . . . Now he really wished
he were Catholic. They seemed to be laughing or singing. Mr.
Phillips never had the chance to decide because, next
moment, his eyes melted and his eardrums ruptured. A kind
of grayness, like television static, engulfed him.

He waited for his body to burn away, waited for his
trapped soul to fly free. The former occurred soon enough.
The latter did not. After hours of burning, Mr. Phillips experi-
enced no release. He couldn’t see or feel anything, hear or

The Little Death of Mr. Phillips 237

smell or taste. His body was gone, but he remained. This was
a disappointment.

As a child, Norman had once pulled the legs off a daddy
longlegs. Its round body landed on the sidewalk, a limbless
lump. Anyone might’ve mistaken it for a clump of dirt, and
that’s what it had become, except that it was alive. Now Mr.
Phillips knew how the daddy longlegs felt. He was a living
pebble.

Oh, well. This was not an emergency. He needed merely to
adjust to his new, empty lifestyle. It wouldn’t be so different,
sensing nothing and being utterly alone.

Still, he knew he’d miss the Wheel.

The H yphenated Spirit

SCOT NOEL

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule!

— Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”

Elizabeth embraced the early morning as she might a
secret lover. It was a time of quiet, with curtains drawn against
the coming of the light. The air was chill and clean. In these
moments she would lose herself in the verses of Clare and
Browning, or commit Tennyson to memory in whispers too
soft for her sleeping sister to hear. For an hour or more there
would be peace. No household to run. No constant fussing to
keep her dear sister civilized. As Cordelia’s illness intensified,
the strain between them had grown to the breaking point. To
give in to Cordelia one more time, Elizabeth knew, might
prove fatal to them both.

With delicate fingers, Elizabeth turned a page. Besides her
in the bed, Cordelia shifted uneasily, snoring, and then break-
ing wind. The chill air did little to dampen the stench.
Elizabeth kept to her reading, having endured far worse.

Another movement and Elizabeth lowered the flame on
the bedside lamp. Sleep had never come easily to the twins,
and the import of the coming day had done them no favors,
keeping them arguing well into the night. At last Cordelia had
succumbed to exhaustion, while Elizabeth read aloud from
Wordsworth’s “Apology.”

After a moment’s consideration, she lowered the flame still
further. The pleated curtain hanging between them might too
easily permit through a shimmer of light, awakening Cordelia.
The curtain should have been replaced with darker cloth,
Elizabeth knew, but it and the four-poster bed on which it
hung had been with them since childhood. Edged in Brussels
lace, the separator lay gently across the band of flesh that
conjoined Elizabeth to her sister.

In the fading light, Elizabeth continued to read from
Tennyson. After a time she realized the marks on the page
meant nothing, her spirit having grown too heavy to decipher
them. She closed the musty volume.

Elizabeth lay back, putting aside her book. Frightened of
the coming day, she drew her quilt close against the cold. A

The Hyphenated Spirit 239

tear began to form. She wished that she could pass now.
Leave flesh, breath, and dreams behind. Slip away without
fear. It was so hard, with Father gone and Mother having
passed soon after. Three years past. For three years, every-
thing had rested on Elizabeth’s shoulders: the house, the ser-
vants downstairs, the caring for Cordelia. It weighed her
down. It drowned her in a darkness she had never imagined.

Focusing her gaze on the lace canopy above, Elizabeth felt
herself pulled toward the beauty and oblivion that had always
fluttered like a heart within her.

A thump. Perhaps a servant stumbling in the dark. There
followed a crash of glassware and a curse. It all but stopped
Elizabeth’s heart, but, more to the point, stirred Cordelia,
bringing a quick tug to the ligament between them. There fol-
lowed a rattling growl from the twin beyond the curtain.
Elizabeth drew back, feeling the bed shake with the power of
a nightmare aroused. The curtain swirled in parting, lost itself
in shadow, torn aside by arms flailing and groping as much
toward consciousness as toward the warm flesh and soft yel-
low light on Elizabeth’s side of the bed.

“Sister, stop!” Elizabeth cried. She reached to the bedside,
her hand groping for something unseen. A vicious tug to the
ligament lifted her bodily away. Her hands flew to her defense
as she repeated Cordelia’s name over and over.

Coming at Elizabeth, out of the dark, loomed a beast
within a cage, the head and shoulders of her wild twin having
been secured within hoops and rods of iron. Behind this bar-
rier, Cordelia’s eyes held the rage of dying men. Their dark
gaze was lost in pools of blood.

In the moment of awakening, Cordelia lost track of all pre-
caution, forgetting the cage that enclosed her head and
shoulders, forgetting everything. She grasped with darkened
flesh at the powder-white shoulders of her twin. Lips pulled
back, revealing teeth already broken and blunted by a taste for
bone, for the softness within. Yet recognition, too, began to rise.
Sluggishly, it registered on Cordelia’s muddied countenance.

As the startling rumpus presented by her conjoined twin
eased, Elizabeth once again reached to the side of the bed.
There her fingers wrapped about the hilt of their father’s silver-
knobbed walking stick. With a will, she brought it crashing
against Cordelia’s imprisoned head.

The chill of Cordelia’s fingers withdrew, lingering no more
than a child’s hand on a hot loaf. Next they went to the bird-
cage, to the hoops and threads of iron that had been hammered
into a special aviary, an enclosure capturing within Cordelia’s

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lust for flesh, a hunger they both knew she could not control
upon awakening. Elizabeth banged against the cage again.

“Sister, sweet Sister!” the gray twin cried. “Stop it. I’m . . .
awake now.”

“It was a servant,” Elizabeth explained, “making a noise.
They shall learn the better of it on the morrow. They should
not have disturbed you.”

Seeing the pages of Tennyson thrown open across the bed,
Cordelia groaned.

“Dear Sister, might you please put out the light?” Cordelia
asked. “Or is it time to begin?”

“You’ve had too little rest.”

“I feel fine.”

“I’m afraid I know best, Cordelia. Now, if you should calm
yourself, I promise to read you to sleep once again.”

Cordelia growled. She grasped the thick book with unfeel-
ing hands, tearing it away from Elizabeth. She recognized the
pages, so well did she hate them. Leaves were brushed aside
until the one she sought flickered in the light, its voice all too
familiar. Elizabeth’s voice.

She read: “‘Thou art mated with a clown, and the gross-
ness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.’”
Closing the book with a dusty wallop, the gray twin tossed the
volume across her shoulder, where it bumped and thumped
into darkness.

“Wake me when it is time,” said Cordelia, reclining with
her arms wrapped tightly, defiantly, about her bosom. Finding
the edge of the separator, she pulled the curtain closed.

Encircling the ligament of flesh between them with the fin-
gers of one hand, Elizabeth stroked gently at the navel they
shared. It had always before calmed Cordelia’s capricious
nerves. “Sleep, dear Sister. Sleep.”

When certain her twin had passed into Morpheus’ realm,
Elizabeth snuffled and closed her eyes. The need to escape
was gone. Oblivion no longer beckoned. As her pillow grew wet
with tears, she knew she could never leave Cordelia on her
own, no matter what they had agreed.

T T +

The belts and buckles securing the birdcage over
Cordelia’s head were easily disentangled. Once awake, she
remained in possession of significant faculties and seemed
eager to hurry Elizabeth along. The new day brought its usual
rituals, things as familiar as the chill of the floor against their
feet, the cool waters of the washbowl, selecting the day’s

The Hyphenated Spirit 241

wardrobe from the armoire, then carefully donning one of the
dresses made especially for them by their mother.

Cordelia fumbled with her corset, and her sister came to
the rescue. Elizabeth’s fingers seemed everywhere, lighting
about Cordelia like flies; Elizabeth’s small talk an unending
buzz.

“I can do it myself,” Cordelia insisted, though looking
helplessly at her own, numb hands.

“Do you remember how much fun we used to have?”
Elizabeth asked. To her, the dark interior of the armoire
before them loomed like a memory. “Do you remember hiding
inside? We scared Mother so, popping out of it like monsters!”

“Keep the armoire,” Cordelia fussed. “I want pounds.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Elizabeth said indignantly. “It
was the memory.”

“It was dark and cold. I thought Mother would never come,
that we were trapped forever.”

“Nonsense, dear. It’s a wonderful memory.” Elizabeth drew
them toward the mirror.

In form, each woman boasted her own seductive propor-
tions. Two arms, two legs, a shapely bosom and firm buttocks,
these were marks of fitness in any age, marred at first glance
by a single imperfection: the strong hyphen of flesh joining
them side to side.

After two and a half decades of life, the motions of the
twins approached in all things the grace of a courtly dance. As
children, Elizabeth and Cordelia had learned to swim in ener-
getic harmony, an activity that served to stretch the ligament
between them from five inches to a flexible seven and half.

“Look at me,” Cordelia said, scowling into the silvered
pane. “I’ll go where no one can find me. I’ll wear dark sheets,
like some damned colored wog.”

More than the band of flesh bridging their separateness
marred the image now. Something of the soil had overtaken
Cordelia, and the graying flesh lent an unholy aspect to her
reflection.

“Even if today is successful,” Elizabeth said, her voice
leaving no doubt that she still stood firmly against the proce-
dure, “you are welcome here. Always.”

“No, not here.”

When Cordelia tried to adjust a decorative chatelaine at
her belt, Elizabeth slapped away the darkened fingers and
fussed with careful ministrations that went from hemline to
decollete.

“Stop it,” Cordelia said unsuccessfully, shutting her eyes

242

Scot Noel

tight against the storm of powder Elizabeth applied to her
cheeks, brow, and neckline. “What will I do without you,
Sister?” The words couched more than a hint of sarcasm.

“We need to finish, Sister. Breakfast is waiting.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. We need our strength
today.” Elizabeth continued to powder Cordelia’s neckline
with studied proficiency, but her thoughts seemed to have
turned elsewhere. At last she spoke, suddenly, answering a
question Cordelia had not asked.

“They have died,” Elizabeth said. She hesitated to broach
the news. “There was a headline.”

“Who? Ah, your correspondents? And you didn’t tell me?”
Cordelia said, feigning interest.

“It was late. You had fallen asleep, at last.”

“It wasn’t — ” Cordelia stiffened. “It wasn’t because of ... a
procedure?”

“No. Never mind. You have no interest.”

Nothing more was said before breakfast. Sitting side by
side, Elizabeth spooned porridge and Cordelia stared at a
calf s liver waiting like a stain before her. With one gray finger
she poked at it, drawing blood out across the milky china of
her plate. A half-drained flagon of Poryter stood close by.

About them, the servants waited like nervous silhouettes,
hurrying from the shadows only when called. They had already
been reprimanded for the earlier commotion and watched
Elizabeth with care. She seemed restless and discontent, even
to Cordelia.

On the table lay a paper, a reminder of fate. It spoke of a
destiny the sisters had shared for a while, shared with others
across the Atlantic, in the United States.

The headlines told of the death of freaks. They spoke of
Siamese twins separated from their dual life, of Chang and
Eng Bunker, who had died on a cold night in North Carolina,
spoiling Elizabeth’s hope that 1874 might bring good news to
both sets of unusual twins. Chang, like Cordelia, had not
been feeling well.

“You’re not eating,” Elizabeth scolded.

“I told you. I am not hungry.” Then, with voice lowered, a
mumbled “not for this” followed, like the whisper of a petulant
child. She took a long drink of the Poryter.

“I can have them bring you a fresh chicken.”

“So they’re dead,” Cordelia interrupted, pointing to the
paper. ‘Tell me.”

“Well,” Elizabeth began, pausing to compose herself. She

The Hyphenated Spirit 243

pushed her porridge aside and replaced it with the paper.
“You know the one named Chang drank too much. It’s some-
thing I’ve warned you about. Drink is not — ”

Cordelia drained her dark brew in a single swallow and
called, “More!”

“As you wish, dear,” Elizabeth said. Her words were tight
and clipped. “As it says here — ” she pointed with authority to
a paragraph in mid-column “ — drink so weakened Chang
that he was injured by a spill from their carriage. A stroke
soon followed.”

Elizabeth’s eyes roamed to the top of the page. ‘The King
of Siam condemned them to death when they were born, you
understand. Their own people considered them monsters. It
says the executioners never came. One of our countrymen
found them and bought them. Can you imagine, being treated
as property and taken on tours in England and America?”
“Aren’t they wogs?”

“No. Well, heathens anyway ,” Elizabeth admitted. “Still,
our fortune could not have been greater, Sister. What would
we have done without Mother?”

“Without Mother? Without money, that is. Even so, I didn’t
realize you corresponded with chattel, dear Sister.”

“That was long ago,” Elizabeth said defensively, not taking
as much offense as Cordelia might have hoped. “I mean, they
own estates now, Cordelia, and slaves. Owned, I mean. The
one called Chang died first, of a blood clot, it says. His brother
Eng awoke and cried out in the night ‘Then I am going!’ It was
Eng who answered my missives. They were so famous.” With a
silk kerchief, she dabbed at the corner of her eyes.

“At least they had lives,” Cordelia said. “Real lives.”

“And families. Children. Can you imagine, Sister?”
Cordelia sneered. “Yes, Sister, I can imagine.”

“Not that!” Elizabeth blushed, flustered. “Wives and chil-
dren — ”

A shadow crossed the table, interrupting Elizabeth. It was
a lithe and graceful dimming of the light. The cat had risen
from the floor with a silent leap, a black feline drawn on by
the smell of liver, or attracted by the fresh milk Elizabeth so
prized for her porridge. It was an unthinkable offense, and it
froze Elizabeth. She stared wordlessly at the moggy’s
approach.

“It’s a tom,” Cordelia cooed. She edged the liver toward
the slowing shadow. “Unravel your nerves, Elizabeth. You’ll
frighten the dear. Another stumble of our servants, no doubt.
Perhaps the noisemaker from this morning.”

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Scot Noel

“Shoo it! For God’s sake, Cordelia.” Elizabeth threw up her
hands. “Mrs. Mallet!” She called for the captain of her errant
downstairs crew. “Remove this . . . thing!”

Cordelia continued to caress the cat, her stroke becoming
more aggressive as Elizabeth’s disquiet grew. Her sister’s voice
had taken on a tenor somewhere between frenzy and panic as
she berated the servants and repeated her cries for Mrs. Mallet.

The tom, at first startled, held its ground, tearing away a
bite of the prized liver. Though Elizabeth continued to rant,
Cordelia ignored the high-pitched immediacy of her twin, or
tried to. It was soon joined by another excited voice.

“Blessed Virgin!” Mrs. Mallet arrived at the table, her fat
hands going immediately for the tom. “I’ve got the moggy.”
But Cordelia turned on the old maid. With a snap of rotting
teeth and a growl, she released something of the tension she
had long held inside. Too long. Her grip on the cat tightened,
causing Mrs. Mallet to retreat, but not to cease her deluge of
excuses and panicked assurances.

“It must have come through the coal cellar!”

“On my mother’s table!”

“It shan’t happen again, Madam!”

But that was not the end of it. As the cat ran its rough
tongue across bloodied plate and cold meat, the exchange
between Elizabeth and Mrs. Mallet grew into a house-ringing
din, and somewhere behind them, others had joined in, voices
male and female adding coal to a fire they hoped to extinguish.

It was more than Cordelia could stand, and as had been
true of every moment, waking and otherwise, there was no
escape, no reprieve from the shackle of flesh that bound her
to the dominant Elizabeth.

In Cordelia’s protective grasp, the beast purred. It leaned
into her stony whisper and enjoyed her leaden nails against
its skin.

“Stop playing with it! Dirty, black thing on Mother’s table!”
Cordelia was hunched now, her breath coming in ragged
gasps. Her arms enfolded the cat in a grip so tight, the animal
clawed and hissed for release. The voices pounded on her.
Elizabeth’s hands, Mrs. Mallet’s hands, other hands: They
pulled and touched. Their voices rang in her ears.

All at once Cordelia pressed the cat’s jaw firmly against her
plate, scrabbling with a free hand toward the silver before her.

A new voice cried out from the shadowed corner of the
room. It hurried forth as Cordelia raised up her bread knife.
She swung the knob of its silver handle hard against the tom’s
skull. The bone cracked, and Cordelia split the skull of the

The Hyphenated Spirit 245

still- wriggling beast as if it were a crab shell, pulling forth fin-
gers coated in blood and brain. As the tom shook out its last,
convulsive breath, Cordelia stuffed the sweet stink of her fin-
gers against her tongue.

The melee in the room was silenced. No one breathed.

Cordelia giggled with delight.

“How could you?” Asked a bony girl, her voice soft as a
prayer. The bloody disposition of her familiar was so shock-
ing, it had yet to bring a tear.

“Never let your voice be heard!” Elizabeth said sternly. She
did not bother to look at the housemaid. “Never talk to your
mistress unless it is to deliver a message or to ask a necessary
question.”

As Elizabeth recited the Servant’s Behavior Book to the
startled girl, the general maid and the footman, having rushed
in, caught at the young woman, pulling her away while offer-
ing words of comfort.

For her part, Cordelia continued to savor the contents of
the cat’s skull.

“Mrs. Mallet! That is the cousin you . . . recommended?”
Elizabeth asked.

“Yes, Madam.” The old voice remained proper, even stern.
“She meant no harm. The cat — ”

“Inexcusable,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I want her out of
this house, this afternoon. And you with her.”

“Madam? You don’t mean . . .’’At first, the words gave way
beneath the maid, as might the ice on a thawing lake. Mrs.
Mallet soon recovered and went on the attack. “You would dis-
miss me over this monster’s appetites?”

Cordelia giggled and swallowed brains.

“Miss Elizabeth, your mother set me to keep this house
before you were born.”

“You are to be fined five pounds and dismissed.”

“Sister,” Cordelia finally interjected, “You can’t — ”

“This is none of your affair! She is dismissed.” Elizabeth
stared straight ahead, acknowledging no presence or author-
ity beyond her own. Cordelia turned a growling, bloody smile
on her.

“You cannot do this,” Mrs. Mallet insisted. The footmen
gathered close, protective of her. “It won’t be stood for. I could
go to the authorities. The things you have brought into this
house. She is a demon!” The men grumbled their agreement.

“Out, all of you!” Elizabeth shouted. “Leave us!”

There were footsteps and whispers, but the room cleared,
and the doors leading to it were shut. When Elizabeth’s breath

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Scot Noel

calmed, she continued. “How could they bring that thing into
this house? And you, dear Sister, have your appetites no lim-
its?” She reached over to dab the goo from Cordelia’s lips
with a napkin. Though Cordelia brushed it away, Elizabeth
persisted.

“I hear they sell these in the market across the channel.”
Cordelia laughed. “Though not so fresh, I imagine.” Then she
returned to crunching with determined effort on a lifeless paw.

T T T

The afternoon was spent in preparation for the journey
into town. With pen and ink, Elizabeth made final adjust-
ments to the distribution of her property, willing everything to
Cordelia. The thought that she might survive the day and her
sister perish never occurred to her.

Cordelia chafed at the shuffling of papers, at Elizabeth’s
fussing over every minor preparation. At one point they made
it as far as the carriage, only to have the coach sent back for
repair to a minor blemish, and to have the lead team changed.

“We would never have made good time without Percival on
the right,” Elizabeth said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cordelia returned. “They are horses.
They will do.”

“No, dear, they will not.”

“You are impossible! If we are not to leave now, I want a
drink, dear Sister.”

Back in the parlor, Elizabeth took tea and waited.
Cordelia tried to feel the heat of cognac in her numbed throat.
When Elizabeth spoke, it seemed of random, unimportant
things.

The settee upon which they sat had once been the prop-
erty of an Afghan prince. It was presented to their father when
he served abroad. The piano had been a gift from a friend in
Parliament. Elizabeth seemed lost in reverie, recounting the
history of every chair and cushion.

“I know why you’re doing this,” Cordelia said. “It won’t
work. I am leaving. You promised.”

“Stop fussing.” Elizabeth said. Putting down her tea, she
seemed to conjure a small case out of nowhere, and with its
contents began to powder Cordelia’s nose. “My bird with the
shining head, my own dove with the tender eye.”

“Stop it! No more damned poetry. Look at me! Look at me!”
Grasping Elizabeth’s head between her hands, Cordelia drew
them close. Bloodshot eyes met bouncing white. “I am a thing.
Ugly to the bone. You cannot follow me. Let me go.”

The Hyphenated Spirit 247

“Nonsense, dear. At first, I was frightened, I admit. But it
seems no worse. The doctor will find — ”

“I want this cut!” Cordelia grabbed the deep band of flesh
between them and squeezed. Under the pressure, Elizabeth
all but swooned. “You have to let me go. I want my own life. A
little gold, a few pounds. Or none. I don’t care, just — I don’t
care if I’m a monster.”

“I’ve let you do things,” Elizabeth snapped back, recover-
ing. Her voice was reproachful. “Let you have your way. But I
promised Mother I would take care of you.”

“Yes, you’ve cared. Cared so very much. . . .” Cordelia
grinned with blackened teeth. “You’ve sent me where you fear
to go, Elizabeth. I’ve done things. Done things so that you
could be there in your white gloves. Beside me. Watching.”
“Stop this nonsense. We shall see the doctor. We will talk
to him.”

“We will do more than talk. All my life. You have been
there all my life. I cannot shit without you.”

“Watch what you say in my house!”

“Your house? When did it become your house?” Cordelia
grimaced at her empty glass, pulled them toward an ornately
carved walnut cupboard. Elizabeth resisted.

“You’ve had enough to drink.”

“Always, you know what I should and should not have,”
said Cordelia. “When we were children, I ate dirt for you.
Remember? Tasted the ground to satisfy you!”

“Balderdash. I ... I would ask at dinner if the veal had
been heavily salted.”

“I tasted your food for you!”

“I never forced — ”

“You hoped. You encouraged. You took pleasure in watch-
ing me drink, in watching me wallow with men and fornicate!”
Cordelia felt no sting from the blow her sister delivered. The
slap rang out across the room. It did not stop the gray twin.

“When Croton took me, you were there, on the other side
of the curtain.”

“A valet. He was no good for you. I dismissed him the next
day.”

“He wasn’t to your taste then? Like the dirt you made me
eat?”

“You are one over. Sozzled. Talking nonsense.”

“I was drunk when you saw him master me that night. On
our own bed! Were you too scared to have him enter you, too?
You might have felt something, mightn’t you? How did it feel
to mimic my position, there on your knees, watching our

248 Scot Noel

shadows move through the curtain? Did anything come across
this band that joins us?”

“No,” Elizabeth said angrily. “As you admit, I’ve let you
make bad decisions.”

“And the priest you engaged to speak with Mother’s ghost,
the Vodoun? Was that my choice?”

“You missed her. You cried at night — every night.”

“You put the thing into my head. Built it up. You had me
speak with the wogs, arrange for this headman to come. But
you! Couldn’t even look at them, could you? There, hiding
behind me, pinching me when I offered too much.”

“You can’t be taken advantage of by coloreds. What would
they do with the money anyway?”

“You provoked the priest, Elizabeth. I can still see him.
Bald, black head. The smoke dripping from his mouth. That
awful cigar.”

The tenor of the combat rose and was sustained for many
minutes, easing only when the coarse voice of the coachman
was heard above the din.

“Madams, your carriage awaits.”

As Cordelia turned to go, Elizabeth felt a tug that could
not be denied.

T + T

The journey to Doctor Baillie proved uneventful. Despite
the winter air, they found the roads clear and traffic light.
Patches of snow glittered beneath coal dust, and the world
itself seemed to shimmer, caught in a glisten of twilight blue.
Soon a row of elaborate houses appeared to their left as they
turned down Highclere Street. Italianate giants stood side by
side with mansions of Tudor design. On the streets there were
few to wonder at the richly appointed rig, and even those who
stared found little to see. An oversized parasol of pleated chif-
fon hid the twins above the shoulders, and their great hoop
skirts and a single fur shawl concealed the rest. So coordi-
nated were they in their movements that a small distance
made them appear to any passerby as a single woman.

“It’s a bit cold,” said the driver as the twins turned toward
the doors of Doctor Baillie’s residence. “Madam, I mean. Might
I take a moment inside?” He cupped his cold hands, one into
the other, and blew steam through his fists.

“Stay with the coach,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “If we are to
stay the night, you will be informed.”

Inside, the doctor himself took their coat. By long tradition,
no one else was on duty, for the twins held a special place in

The Hyphenated Spirit 249

Baillie’s practice. The bearded old Scot smiled and seemed
genuinely pleased to see them. There was small talk. Tea and
biscuits graced old silver. The examination room seemed more
library than place of medicine. A claymore and tartan hung
upon one wall, and Baillie himself, dressed in a rough brown
suit, smelled more of tobacco than antiseptic.

“I miss your father,” the doctor said. “The holidays are not
the same without him. Your mother, too, of course. I wish you
had come to the house as I asked.”

“My apologies, Doctor,” Elizabeth said sternly, “but could
we proceed. With the examination, I mean.”

“I brought you into this world, young lady,” Baillie
returned. He said nothing more, but carefully adjusted his
lights and a handful of mirrors, leading Elizabeth and
Cordelia to be seated on a bench. With studied patience he
helped the twins maintain their modesty, even while probing
where he must, using hand and eye. The hyphen of flesh
between them he examined more closely, pulling out the
stitches of the cloth enclosing it, laying it bare.

Here gray skin melted into healthy tissue. Pink flesh dis-
appeared beneath calloused veins. In the battlefield between
the two sisters, there was no apparent winner.

“Remarkable,” Baillie commented, mostly to himself. “At
first the progression was swift. Now the factor appears
blocked. I had always assumed you shared blood, but now
this seems uncertain. Elizabeth, have you felt anything?”
“No,” Elizabeth answered. “I’m well, I assure you.”

“It’s not that,” Cordelia said, breaking the silence she had
maintained since entering the house. ‘This is no disease. It’s
a Vodoun curse. Doctor Baillie, you promised to separate us!”
“If Elizabeth’s life were threatened, or yours. Whatever this
is — ” he touched the leaden flesh where it joined to Cordelia
“ — it seems arrested. Does your sister still crave flesh?”

“I’m here,” Cordelia growled. “You don’t always have to
address her, as if I’m a child or incapable of answering.”

Doctor Baillie nodded, conceding the point. After a
moment, he pulled away, his expression pensive. He moved
into shadow and, extracting a pipe from his suit pocket, lit it.
“I have done research. This Vodoun-non, or high priest, he
claimed to come from Africa, from Abeokuta to be precise?
That would seem reasonable. They are an ancient people.
Monstrous. It was very bad for you to have fallen in with
one.”

“Elizabeth refused him water,” Cordelia said accusingly.
“He was dancing and shouting, building up power. After a

250

Scot Noel

time he looked right at us. I couldn’t tell what he was saying;
I was so scared. Then he made the motions with his hands, and
I knew he wanted water. Elizabeth could not have a colored
mouth touch our crystal.”

“A disgusting mistake,” said Elizabeth, shaking her head.
“I should not have indulged Cordelia so.”

“The demon coughed out words, filled the air with them
like smoke.” Cordelia looked off into the room, her eyes losing
their focus. “He pulled something from his pocket, slashed
it — ” She moved an uncertain hand to her throat, left it trem-
bling. “Here.”

“A bone,” Elizabeth added. “Or some of it was bone. A fin-
ger I think.”

“I see. Water, you say.” The doctor puffed mightily and
withdrew again into shadow. When he reappeared, a book lay
open between his hands. “Water is at the very heart of hoo
doo, or vaudaux, as the French say it. You gave him a power-
ful insult, Elizabeth.”

“Why should I care what a colored thinks?”

“Why, indeed,” said Doctor Baillie. “You must understand,
I’m not certain what has befallen the two of you. Not at all. In
cases — in the literature — this affliction takes on a character
altogether different.

“This beast out of the African darkness, he hasn’t enslaved
you. In fact, it appears he has fled the scene altogether. You
have your own wills. You have your own thoughts. Cordelia
has not become the always-ravening animal these pages
describe. If it is a curse this Vodoun-non has delivered upon
you, it is one of his own devising.”

“Do you think it is a curse, Doctor?” Elizabeth asked.

“I think medicine is where our faith must lie for now. This
scratch.” He lifted from his desk a remarkably sized magnifier
and placed it against Cordelia’s throat. He stared long into the
great, chrome-rimmed eye. “It has never healed these months.
Perhaps beneath it rests a breeding ground for some parasite,
or a blood-borne necrosis. There are toxins in the jungle the
nature of which we cannot fathom.”

“They’re dead, you know,” Elizabeth blurted out.

“What? Oh, yes,” said Doctor Baillie, now pricking repeat-
edly at Cordelia’s neck with a scalpel. “Chang and Eng, I sup-
pose. Sad thing that.”

“Eng tried to look out after his brother, too.”

“Oh, please!” Cordelia growled. An impatient fidget moved
her hard against the scalpel. The blade sank into her throat
with bloodless efficiency. Before removing the instrument,

The Hyphenated Spirit 251

Doctor Baillie probed deeper, fishing a bit in the hole he had
created. The action reminded him of an autopsy.
“Remarkable.”

“Is there anything that can be done?” Elizabeth asked.
“Tests, of course,” said Doctor Baillie, pressing the wound
between his fingers to see if it would close. He could sense that
Cordelia was growing more impatient. “Papers to be written.
Peer reviews. Could make a man famous, I daresay.”

“You promised to separate us!” Cordelia insisted. “I can’t
stand this anymore. I don’t care if I am dead. I just don’t want
to be next to her!”

Elizabeth turned to her sister, her stunned indignation as
practiced as ever. “You don’t know what you’re saying, dear. I
admit I was frightened when this began. I’ve told you. It might
have been necessary, if you were . . . But you heard the doc-
tor. I’ll be fine. And there are tests.”

“Now! Separate us now!” The agitation rising within
Cordelia made it feel, for a moment, as though her blood once
again ran warm. “What risk could there be? This could make
you famous, too, Doctor Baillie!”

Putting aside scalpel and magnifier, the doctor once again
took up his pipe. He looked thoughtfully toward the wall con-
taining his family’s tartan and the old claymore.

“Don’t you see, Cordelia,” he said. “You and Elizabeth are
a hyphenated spirit. One has always been the cavalier, the
epicurean, and the speculator. The other is the essence, the
spirit — the mother to an unruly child. You could not survive
apart, anymore than if I divided myself.” Pipe firmly in his
teeth, Doctor Baillie reached for the claymore, brought it
down in a single sweeping movement as if to decapitate the
twins. He stopped short, then laughed a smoking laugh.

“Were I to operate, it would be the same! Tell me which,
and I will do either! Even in America, the most famous like
you remained joined until the end.”

“You see, Cordelia,” Elizabeth scolded, “I cannot abandon
you. There were moments, but I knew I could never leave you.”
“I can’t stand this, I tell you!” Cordelia lunged upward,
pulling Elizabeth from the examination bench. Her cold fin-
gers twisted numbly about the hilt of the claymore, making
every attempt to prize it from the doctor’s hands. “Let me do
it! I can do it!” Her grim focus meant nothing to the grizzled
old Scot. He maintained the sword and broke away without
apology, turning from Cordelia to place the blade back where
it belonged.

Agitated beyond redemption, Cordelia could hear nothing

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Scot Noel

but Elizabeth’s voice ringing in her ears, could feel nothing
but Elizabeth’s hands grasping at her shoulders. Not think-
ing, she reached for Baillie’s scalpel, but it clattered away
from thick fingers. She raised up the magnifier instead. As
Doctor Baillie turned, Cordelia hammered him behind the ear,
then once above the eye. He fell like a slaughtered cow.

“Cordelia!” Elizabeth’s voice rose high enough to break
crystal. Again and again her twin bludgeoned the fallen man.
Bludgeoned until scalp sloughed away and skull gleamed like
ice shattered in a sea of red.

Cordelia’s violence had driven them both to their knees.
When she stopped, it was to hear Elizabeth’s breathing fill the
room like thunder. Cordelia’s lips rested close to Baillie now,
so close she could feel the prick of his beard, her tongue that
near to sinking into a smear of blood. From the corner of her
eye, a stunning spatter of brains invited her attention.

“Come now,” Elizabeth said calmly. “We must go home.”

There on her knees, Cordelia wavered, not knowing
whether she would vomit or break into Baillie’s opened skull
and scoop out his brains. But her madness was spent — for the
moment — and Elizabeth had her. They rose to their feet, their
dresses decorated in a patchwork of blood and grizzly scraps.

As they made to go, not a word passing between them,
Cordelia reached for the claymore, but Elizabeth pulled her
away.

T T T

Outside, twilight had given way to fog and darkness. And
though the coachman grumbled something beneath his
breath, he responded satisfactorily to Elizabeth’s commands.

All the way home, Elizabeth held Cordelia close, though
the gray twin shivered not half so much as Elizabeth.

“What are we to do?” Cordelia asked repeatedly. “Doctor
Baillie. It’s not the same as a chicken. Or a cat.”

“Let me think,” Elizabeth answered repeatedly. But there
was little time to think, and Cordelia’s shock, as it waned,
seemed no more than a veil behind which some new panic
burned like a fever. Elizabeth planned to douse it in brandy.

The coach clattered over rough bricks as they turned in
toward the great house. It drowned out Cordelia’s hushed
words.

“What, dear?” Elizabeth asked.

“Trapped. In a snare,” Cordelia repeated.

“Yes, I suppose,” Elizabeth said. “Still, they can hardly
hold someone like you responsible. Don’t worry. Our solicitor

The Hyphenated Spirit 253

will handle everything in the morning.” Seeing the welcome
lights of the house, Elizabeth hugged her sister close, then
closer still. She never heard the whisper. Could not have con-
ceived the design muttered from beneath glazed eyes, the
strategy that fell in fragments from drool- encrusted lips.

As they pulled up before the main entrance, Mrs. Mallet
greeted them by torchlight. Elizabeth accepted a hand down
from the wagon.

“The girl has been dismissed?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes, Madam,” said the old maid, unflinching. “And five of
my own pounds locked in the tea caddy. Shall I draw a bath
for you and Miss Cordelia?”

“Yes, do so.”

“As you please, Madam.” Without another word, Mrs.
Mallet had retained her position. In truth, it was because
Elizabeth needed a warm bath more than an argument, and
she could trust the old woman to do her duty.

“These clothes were soiled in the weather. Burn them.”

“As you please, Madam.”

An hour passed, then two. The fires in the house were
stoked. The bath drawn by Mrs. Mallet was taken in an elab-
orate footed tub, and though Cordelia moved along with her
sister, and accepted the scrubbing and dousing as she always
had, there seemed no pleasure in it.

“Here, my dear. Take this.” Elizabeth swirled a glass of
amber liquor beneath Cordelia’s nose. She had poured it from
a decanter placed within arm’s reach by Mrs. Mallet. “If you
find the water soothing, this will do even more.”

Cordelia accepted, downing three measures in a single
swallow.

Another bucket of near-boiling water arrived. The bath
steamed. Glassware and windows sweated, as did Elizabeth.
She relaxed into the tub, drawing Cordelia even closer.

“Trapped,” the gray twin whispered. “Like an animal.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad as that, I assure you,” said Elizabeth.
“My, how you’ve drunk it down! Mrs. Mallet, after this evening,
I could stand a measure myself.” And Mrs. Mallet was there to
hand a snifter to the sovereign twin. Elizabeth took it out of
the air, as though her word itself had conjured it. Not realizing
how much it would bum on the way down, Elizabeth drank it
and then coughed. Still, after a moment she swallowed more.

“Shall I prepare a late meal?” asked Mrs. Mallet.

“Do what you can,” said Elizabeth lazily. “We shan’t be
much longer.”

With Mrs. Mallet gone, Cordelia laid her head close upon

254

Scot Noel

her twin’s breasts, as though exhausted. She snuggled her
cold brow against Elizabeth, looking down with lifeless eyes.
There, centered in her gaze, lay the hyphen of flesh that
seemed to imprison her forever.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and drank, her face already
flushed with warmth.

“You see, Cordelia; it’s not as you said. I’m not afraid to
live.” Emptying the last ochre swirl from the snifter, Elizabeth
began to feel its somnifacient effects. “It will be taken care of,”
she said, breathing out this assurance as the heat and the
brandy stole over her. “You will be with me forever.”

Cordelia moved slowly. By quiet inches her face
approached the still, white-flecked water. There, above the
soapy tide lay the curl of muscle and mottled flesh, and though
she tried, carefully, slowly, she could not reach it. With
Elizabeth’s warm flesh burning against her lips, she could go
no farther.

“I’ll tell you a poem,” Elizabeth said, unaware. For a
moment she seemed to have fallen asleep. Then, recovering,
she continued. “Do you know the one: ‘I built my soul a lordly
pleasure-house, wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said “O soul,
make merry and carouse. Dear soul, for all is well" ’ What do
you think, dear. . . ?”

Cordelia nuzzled at her sister’s breast. If she could not
reach the hyphen at their middle, she would have to start
higher.

“Animals,” Cordelia said in a hush. “To escape. They chew
off their own feet, don’t they? Don’t they, Sister?”

By now touching the threshold of sleep, Elizabeth did lit-
tle more than nod. It was only after a moment’s consideration
that the oddness of the words appealed to her.

“What, dear?”

T T T

Mrs. Mallet stood outside the house, breathless. She held
a cleaver in one hand; in the other, a chicken struggled on the
block. When first the scream came, she chopped. For every
scream after, she chopped again.

By the time the servants reached her with the news, there
was nothing left.

Inheriting Red

ALEXANDER MARSH FREED

In an apple orchard in Zimbabwe, under the branches of
a tree brown and withered by drought, a child was born
January 5th, twenty years ago.

He was my brother — my real brother, in the ways that
matter — and I would have loved him. But no one ever told me
he existed, and so I never had the chance.

+ + +

“To me, death smells like lilies,” I told Doctor Sardinha, as
she craned her neck back to drink from a carton of milk. Her
eyes were closed to keep out the sun, and her throat pulsed
twice before she put the carton next to her cellophane sand-
wich wrapper on the table. Despite myself, I found my atten-
tion caught by a drop of milk that escaped the carton’s
mouth, worming its way down the cardboard side.

“I’m sorry?” Sardinha said. Her brow was crinkled and
half-obscured by brown hair, and she was looking past my
shoulder to the lab.

I forced a smile, trying to reassure her. “When we get a
new set of memories, I always sift through them for the smell,
and the perception of the smell.” The drop of milk slid to the
table, seeping in and turning the wood dark. Six years ago, an
electric company employee had watched his coworker break
his neck on the table; the man had fallen, while trimming the
branches of the oak tree overhead. He hadn’t been as grace-
ful as the milk drop.

“If my children die now, they won’t know anything about
lilies,” I continued. “All they’ll remember are the tubes and our
faces past the glass. And even we’ll be filtered through red.” I
sighed. “I won’t let even that much be lost, but ... I don’t
want them to die.”

“I know,” Sardinha said. “I’m doing my best, Rebecca. We
all are. Doctor Dowley has some ideas, but we don’t have the
people or the equipment that Unno’s group did. Besides, your
children aren’t like you. Your DNA is — ”

“I know,” I said. “I understand the reports. I know about
the advantages my fathers had, and the problems with my
children. But it’s your job to fix it. I need you to fix it.”

What she thought I meant, I don’t know. But she folded

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Alexander Marsh Freed

her hands in her lap, and tried to keep her shoulders from
shaking as she nodded. “We’re trying,” she said. “I swear we’re
trying.”

“I know,” I repeated. “But I want my children to see the
world. I want them to see what I see. Not just for their sake,
but for yours, too. You understand; you wouldn’t be here,
otherwise.”

Doctor Sardinha bobbed her head again, but my atten-
tion left her and the campus and the lab. One of my brothers
on the Argentine front had stopped a soldier from shooting
himself, and I could taste the soldier’s blood on my lips, feel
his memories seeping into us. I wiped my mouth with my
sleeve as I searched for lilies, and saw his wife wearing a
blossom in her hair on the night of their first anniversary.
The petals were edged with brown, and had begun losing
their scent, but James had held her so close that he still
remembered it.

I sent the thought to him as he rose, comforting him as he
joined my siblings in the search for soldiers who were still
resisting.

I put my children out of my mind. “Are the new volunteers
here, yet?” I asked Doctor Sardinha, looking toward the labo-
ratory’s glass doors.

T T T

Two men and one woman walked alongside the stones,
the sun drawing out the smell of vegetation. The trees nearby
were mostly dead — some burned with half- shattered trunks,
others fallen and rotting — but the underbrush was thick, and
mold and mushrooms grew everywhere. Pietro ducked under
a toppled trunk that leaned against the plateau above, and
saw a horde of termites swarming across the underside.

Not one of the trio had seen for themselves what the land
had looked like before the bombs fell. Neither had I, but I
cherished the memories I had.

Genevieve found the cave entrance first. It was barely a
crack in the stone, which explained why none of us had
noticed it before. I looked through Pietro’s eyes, and wondered
how long it had been there — whether it was the result of the
bombs and the collapse of the temple, or if laborers had
opened it thousands of years ago. I imagined what it would
have been like for the laborers, chipping away at stone as
their backs shone with sweat. I wondered if they knew what
they were doing; if they believed they were helping to create a
better world, to forestall the Kali-Yuga and imprison a great

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Inheriting Red

evil. Or if they were slaves, neither understanding nor caring to
understand what they did. And I thought about their stories,
which could have been saved, if they’d only acted differently.

If they were real. I didn’t even know that.

Approaching the stone, Genevieve lowered her head and
climbed into the crevice. She was the smallest, with Ugabe just
a bit larger. Pietro would wait behind until we were sure this
was the right cave, and that it didn’t dead end. If Genevieve
and Ugabe were lost or buried, it would be unfortunate — but
their memories would remain with us, and someone needed to
find our target.

There was no light inside the crevice, and barely enough
room for Genevieve to reach ahead and feel the path of the
stone. She worked herself against the rocks, twisting and
squeezing farther inside. Strands of her hair lodged in a crack,
and she pushed forward, tearing the roots free. By the time
the cave opened up, her back and knees were bleeding — she
was still young — and she stank heavily of soil. Ugabe was
some distance behind, but she stood straight and moved on
without waiting for him.

We adjusted to the darkness, and saw a series of bas
reliefs carved into the walls. Genevieve walked past them
without looking, and I nearly steered her back — but I could
peruse the reliefs later. There was soon enough space for four
men to walk abreast, and pale light glowed far ahead. As
Ugabe struggled to squirm through the tunnel, I considered
sending Pietro in, as well. This had to be the place.

Genevieve drew back my attention before I could decide.
She had found the source of the light: a lantern set in a yel-
low plastic cage, suckling electricity through a cord running
to a generator. The lantern was part of a small circle of
objects — a notebook, sealed plastic bags holding granola and
dried beef, a backpack, a toothbrush, and a razor. In the cen-
ter of the circle sat an elderly man in an olive jacket, his sil-
houette obscuring the relief on the wall behind him. A com-
puter rested in his lap, and he looked up at Genevieve coldly.

“Welcome home, brahmaparush,” he said.

T T T

My brother Aeneas was six years old when he found a
stranger in the orchard. The man was a dozen meters away
from the edge of the dirt road dividing the property, lying in
shallow grass with his head resting against a tree trunk. The
air was hazy with heat and dust, and the stranger hissed as
he drank it in.

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Alexander Marsh Freed

Aeneas flinched when he saw the man, as he wandered
between trees. Shaking, he thought about turning and racing
home — but as he stared, he noticed the way the man’s head
lolled back, and how the man’s shoulders dug into bark. He
noticed the fresh tire grooves in the road, and the earth at the
road’s edge dappled with moisture.

Walking closer, taking shelter in shadows, Aeneas came
near enough to see the stranger’s eyes. They were huge,
bright white and set shallowly in his face, tainted with yellow
around the edges like inverted eggs. His hair was short and
dark, and a red stain, centered on his stomach, spread over
his white T-shirt.

Half- expecting the stranger to leap up and throttle him,
and not entirely sure he wasn’t imagining the whole thing,
Aeneas yelled, “Hello?”

The man’s head rolled, and his egg-eyes focused on
Aeneas, pupils contracting tightly. “Hello,” he called back. “My
name is Billy. Is there . . . anyone else around?”

Unsure what answer would be safe, Aeneas merely nodded.

“What’s your name?” Billy asked.

Aeneas walked closer, until he was only a few meters
away. Billy was shivering, and smelled foul.

“Aeneas,” my brother said. “Are you hurt?”

Billy smiled wryly. “Smart boy,” he said. “Yes. Is there
someone around who can help me? Your father, maybe?”

“I don’t know,” Aeneas said. Most of the workers weren’t
at the orchard anymore — he didn’t know why. His father
wasn’t home, and his mother . . . she was sick. Sicker than
she’d been in a while. He wasn’t supposed to bother her when
she was this way.

Billy raised his head and made a sound like a bird before
he dropped back to the tree. “Aeneas,” he said, “if I don’t get
help, I will die. Please help me.”

Aeneas began trembling. The man would die if he didn’t
help. . . .

Stepping still closer, Aeneas crouched at Billy’s side and
pointed with one finger at the stain on the man’s shirt. “Is that
where you’re hurt?”

Billy barely nodded. “Please get help,” he whispered. “I
don’t want to die. Please.”

Screwing up his face, Aeneas lowered his finger to the
stain and pressed down. He felt skin and cloth sink in, and let
out a quiet cry at the sensation. He pressed down harder, low-
ered his palm to the blood, and wanted Billy to live. He begged
for Billy to live.

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Inheriting Red

In a few minutes, Billy’s wound was closed.

That was the first time my brother healed a man.

T T T

Andrea was the oldest of my children, but I rarely called
her by name anymore. I didn’t have the heart for it. I watched
her float in the glass tube in the middle of the white room,
watched her breathe in re-engineered amniotic fluid and twist
among the red- tainted wires and tubes, and tried to think of
her as something less than a person. Something that wouldn’t
hurt so much to lose.

There were fourteen others, in different labs in the building.
I spent time with Andrea then because she was the oldest, and
the closest to dying.

My fathers — my creators — had never felt that way about
me. I’d looked through their memories, and while some had
cared for my mother, feared for her when they’d implanted
her with seeds from Daniel and my brothers who’d been
trapped in the temple, few had worried about me. I was more
than an experiment to them — I was an infant, and they cared
if I lived or died — but they didn’t care who I was. Who I would
become.

I felt a surge of anger, and let some of it spill into Doctor
Unno, where he lumbered through the Melbourne ruins in
search of survivors and resistance troops. It was petty — he’d
receive a flash of memory and pain, without understanding
what it meant — but he was the only one of my creators left,
and I needed to channel my feelings somewhere.

I walked to the door and stepped into the immaculate
hallway. As I headed for my office, I peered through the eyes
of a sister in the foyer, where Doctor Milken was rubbing at
his glasses with his sleeve and talking to the new volunteers.
Some of them stood straight and attentive, while others were
huddled together on the wooden benches. They were listening
to the usual speech about how important they were to the
cause, as scientists and mechanics and janitors.

I entered my sister fully, and stifled her hunger as we
looked over the group. They were a mix of men and women,
mostly young. Almost a third of them had that tense, wide-
eyed look whenever they glanced at me. I recognized the look;
they were the desperate and the mad. The ones who wanted
an escape, but who were too afraid to join my siblings. More
of them had been coming to me, lately. Most of the truly
devoted were already here.

But I needed as many sets of hands as I could get. I love

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Alexander Marsh Freed

my siblings, but searching and feasting doesn’t get a nursery
built. I needed others for their knowledge, their numbers, and
the manual dexterity to splice wires and hammer nails into
wood. My children would be like me, gifted with the best of
both worlds — but that was years in the future.

My children.

Back inside Rebecca, I sat among the paintings and
masks of my office, digging my heels into carpet and settling
into my ebony chair. I thought about Andrea, and let the vis-
itors roam.

Within an hour, I heard the shriek of an alarm, and I
knew it was for my daughter.

+ 4 * +

I felt Genevieve’s knees burst as they were ripped apart by
bullets. I counted three shots, and even as Genevieve’s ankles
turned cold and wet, and her chin collided with earth, I hated
the shooter for the second bullet — the one that passed
between my sister’s legs, to strike and scar one of the reliefs.
Genevieve’s body was replaceable. History was not.

The man in the olive jacket put his gun beside him with
both hands, and drew a machete from his backpack. I could
see his fingers shaking where he gripped the pommel. I
guessed he was arthritic. “Crawl any closer and I’ll cut your
goddamn head off,” he said. “I know you’re listening, Becky —
I’ll cut her head off, and if I see anyone else, I’ll splatter mine
across the walls next.”

Genevieve was hungry, and angry, and hurt. She deserved
better, but I soothed her and kept her from approaching.
Ugabe continued trying to squeeze past the rocks, tearing off
a finger in the process.

The man lowered the knife to his lap without letting it go.
He looked at his computer screen, then past it to Genevieve’s
body. “So, you found my wife,” he said.

I pressed myself fully into Genevieve’s head. Her tongue
and mouth were decaying, but her throat could still function.
I forced dead flesh to move. “I wanted to see you, Charles,” I
said. I hoped he could understand.

He unwrapped his hand from the knife and tapped a few
keys. “I’m sure you did. You’re seeing me. You’re not going to
get what you want.”

I mouthed, “You don’t know what I want,” but no sound
came out. Putting more effort into it, I said, “You damaged the
relief.”

“Did I?” Charles asked. “I’ve looked at them before, but it’s

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Inheriting Red

been a while.” He balanced the knife on his thigh and lifted
his gun again, firing two more shots. Behind me, I heard stone
crumbling into dust. Genevieve’s eyes wouldn’t close, and I
was forced to watch him reload with swift, jerky motions.

“You loved history,” I said, wishing I could make Genevieve
sound angry. In London, seven of my siblings were inside a
nightclub, tearing open skulls and dragging customers away
from doors as lasers glowed around them. They were about to
become more vicious.

Charles hesitated. “I told you,” he said. “I looked them over
already. They’re about what you’d expect: the brahmaparush
unleashed, razing the world and devouring humankind.
Rather graphic in parts, too. You mean to tell me no one you’ve
eaten ever saw them?”

I shook my head. “I never knew any of this was down here.
Was this . . . where you fled when Daniel opened the vault in
the temple?”

“This was the place,” he said. “Worked well then.” He
squinted at the computer screen. “Not so well now, I suppose.”

I waited for more, then said, “He had great respect for
you.”

“I know. I figured that out without eating his brain.”

Ugabe tore open the side of his arm, and emerged from the
tunnel into the wider part of the cave. I urged him to wait
there.

“You loved history,” I said again.

“I did,” Charles said. “But I really hate you.”

“I never tried to hurt you,” I said. “I want to learn about
your life, to keep you from being forgotten. That’s all.”

“Then why did you send her?” Charles asked. He lifted the
machete and waved the point in my direction. Genevieve’s
direction.

I didn’t answer.

T T T

My brother was sixteen when he first heard of me. He was
sitting in a cafe in Johannesburg, picking at slap chips from
a brown paper bag and wiping the shine of grease and vine-
gar from his fingers with a thin paper napkin. Ceiling fans
hummed and mixed with the voices of other customers, while
Billy sat across from him, sipping a beer that had left a series
of wet rings on the formica tabletop.

For the first time in a while, Aeneas wasn’t thinking about
his mother, and Billy was making an effort to relax. Neither
spoke much; they needed their peace. They had their tickets

262 Alexander Marsh Freed

to the States and three days to rest. There was nothing else
they could do.

They both turned their heads when the customers at the
counter fell silent. The men there had stopped yelling at the
football game on the grainy television near the cash register.
They were still watching the television, but it had stopped
showing football. Now it showed me.

I wore a green dress trimmed with silver, and I stood on a
wooden bridge over a small pond. In the background,
Melbourne was burning. I’ve regretted that ever since; if I’d
known the resistance had planned to start setting fires, known
my perfect picture would be ruined, I’d have filmed somewhere
else. But I couldn’t stop in the middle.

“Over the past few years,” I said, “many of you have asked
‘Why?’ In truth, even my siblings — the ones you think of as
zombies, your brahmaparush — didn’t understand. They acted
out of instinct, mindlessly consuming without knowing their
real purpose.”

“Who is that?” Aeneas whispered. Billy shook his head.

“But I am here to tell you that there is a purpose. That you
need not mourn those who have joined me,” I said. “We are
not killers or sadists. We are revolutionaries and dreamers.
Builders of a better tomorrow, where the idea that the dead
live on in our memories is not a comforting lie, but the literal
truth.

“When an individual joins us, when he rises among our
ranks, his thoughts and memories are shared with us all.
Every whisper and action in his or her past is preserved and
cherished, and will last until the end of time. You ask why we
come for the young and the old, the sick and the healthy — and
the truth is we come because we could not bear to let any lives
be lost when we could have saved them. Because even the
young can fall prey to accidents, and those who appear
healthy can die from the inside.

“And it is true that my siblings can’t understand these
things, or the memories they receive. That is why they are
only the beginning. My name is Rebecca Adler, and I am the
first of a new race. Like you, I possess identity, mind, and
will — but I also share the memories of my siblings. My chil-
dren will be like me, and will keep my memories when I die.
And their children will keep theirs. They will bring about a
new world — one where history cannot be lost or where lies
fade away. Where our loved ones will last in our memories for
eternity. A world where nothing is left undone or unsaid, and
where the richness of humanity’s past is part of us all.

Inheriting Red 263

“My children will walk this world, and make a paradise of
it. The only cost is that we embrace change.”

Outside the cafe, the streets were quiet, too. Slowly, every
radio, television, and computer in Johannesburg was tuned to
my speech. No one spoke a word.

“But I need your help,” I said. “I am only one person, and
while my siblings can keep the past safe, I need men and
women who believe in my cause to help prepare for the future.
To show others why they should join us, and to pave the way
for my children.

“To those who oppose me — and I mean not only Presidents
Mimura and DeLong, but every individual who raises a gun
against us in the streets, or gives shelter to those who do —
know that I love you. You fear me, but I will do everything I
can to prevent your lives from being wasted and forgotten. In
a thousand years, we will still remember your family, your
lovers, and your dreams.”

Aeneas blinked during the shot. When his eyes opened,
the thunder had passed, and blood poured down my dress
and speckled the bridge.

Billy was the first to his feet, but the rest of the cafe joined
him as he moved. As if the football game were still on, he
clapped his hands together and shouted a gleeful, “Yes!”
Aeneas stared, his lips half-parted, watching me tremble and
press my palms to my forehead.

The cafe patrons laughed and wrapped their arms around
each other’s shoulders. I moved my hands away from the hole
in my head — and stared at the camera.

“Erin Soesbee,” I said. “There was nothing you could have
done to stop your brother from coming here. He wanted to die,
and I was only an excuse. His memories are safe now.”

I smiled, a little weakly. In the cafe, the cheering stopped,
though no one moved. Aeneas still watched me.

“This changes nothing,” I finished. “Please. Come to me.”

The football game came back on. Billy sat down.

“That was all wrong,” Aeneas whispered.

“No shit,” Billy said, and stared at his beer.

T T T

Andrea’s womb was halfway across the building. Rather
than try to race from my office to the lab where it was housed,
I shoved aside the remaining consciousness of a former
lounge singer named Sean who guarded the cafeteria, and
made my way with him into the halls. My legs were twisted
and rotting, and the linoleum felt dangerously slick beneath

264

Alexander Marsh Freed

my feet, but I marched past identical windows and doors until
I saw the lab I sought.

The door was swinging closed, and I heard shouting
before it clicked shut. Something about heart failure, about
draining fluid. I swore to myself that if Andrea died, I’d devour
everyone in there to learn what had happened. Maybe even if
she didn’t.

I was seconds away when the door opened again, and a
bassinet was rushed out. I glimpsed a red body wrapped in
blankets, but didn’t see movement. Doctors Milken and
Dowley flanked the bassinet, ignoring me as they pushed it
down the hall. I wondered where Doctor Sardinha was, and
opened my mouth to try to speak. Nothing came out; my body
was far too decomposed.

I slammed my knuckles against the wall, trying to get the
doctors’ attention, but they were halfway around a corner by
then. I wobbled over to the lab window and peered through
the streaked glass. No one was left, and the tube — its sides
still stained crimson — stood open and empty. Amniotic fluid
was splashed across the floor.

I wanted the doctors to die. I wanted their bodies; I wanted
to do what they were too incompetent to do. Andrea was
dying. She needed to live.

I urged Sean forward, and dropped back into Rebecca’s
body in the office. She could move faster. She could talk to the
doctors and demand to know what was happening. I stepped
out and ran for the labs.

Fluorescent lights blurred above me, making the floor look
like white fuzz. I wasn’t even certain where the doctors had
gone, but I had ideas, and no one could go far without one of
my siblings seeing. As it turned out, I did fine on my own; as
I passed by a branch on my way to the secondary nursery, I
heard voices coming from behind me.

“Who the fuck are you? Get out of the way!” someone said.
It sounded like Doctor Dowley.

I turned and went back to the branch. A dozen meters
down the hall, a dark-skinned man in a white T-shirt faced
away from me, standing over Andrea’s bassinet. Dowley and
Milken were both staring at where my daughter should have
been, but my view was blocked.

From the other end of the hall, Doctor Sardinha came
running, her lab coat flapping at her ankles. “What’s happen-
ing?” she called, then skidded to a stop when she saw me.

“She’s alive,” Doctor Milken whispered. He slowly removed
his glasses without looking away from the bassinet.

Inheriting Red 265

I stalked forward, trying to get a look at Andrea. “What do
you mean?” I hissed. “What happened?”

Dowley glanced up. “He saved her,” he said, and gestured
to the stranger, who turned to face me. “Andrea’s fine. She
wasn’t breathing, and now she’s . . . fine.”

I looked at the stranger. I recognized him as one of the new-
comers from the lobby, but there wasn’t a thing remarkable
about him. I was too surprised — and honestly, too shocked and
relieved — to respond when he reached out and touched a
sweaty palm to my neck.

Checkmate, you bitch.

4 * 4 * 4 *

“You’re not going to win,” Charles said, looking back at his
computer and tapping a few keys. “You’ve murdered two con-
tinents’ worth of people, but you’re not going to win.”

It wasn’t a topic I wanted to go into, but I tried to sound
tolerant. It helped that Genevieve’s tone was difficult to vary.
“Why not?” I asked.

“I could tell you about righteous vengeance, or how, if
something as terrible as the brahmaparush are real, some-
thing better must exist, too. But the real answer is that
humanity’s a resourceful lot, and when that many people want
you dead, they’ll find a way. We have found a way. You just
don’t realize it yet.”

“Are you through taking potshots at me?” I said. Ugabe
marched farther into the cave, keeping his distance so that
his rotting face wasn’t revealed by the lantern.

“I’m just passing the time before you kill me,” Charles
said. “What else do you want to talk about?”

I said nothing for a while, then asked, “Why haven’t you
spoken to me in all these years?”

Charles laughed, and the tremors made his hands shake
again. He lifted them from the keyboard and placed them back
on his gun. “Why would I want to?” he replied. “I like being
safe, and you don’t have anything interesting to say.”

“I could tell you about the notes Daniel never finished
compiling, or how he knew about — and forgave you for — what
happened in Burma. I could tell you what happened to
Nathan Stewart when he dropped out of your Asian Studies
class thirty years ago. I could tell you anything you wanted to
know about your wife.”

Charles arched his brow. “And what would you want in
return?”

“Don’t kill yourself,” I said. “Let me have your memories.”

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Alexander Marsh Freed

“So you can know our plans? Know who we have on the
inside, what we’ve got satellite pictures of? I don’t give up my
life’s work that easily, Becky.”

I sent Ugabe a few steps forward, still keeping him out of
view, then forced myself to regain control. “So I can know
what you really think,” I said. “So I can know that you know
that you’re proud that you and Daniel, studying, researching
like you did, discovered that the brahmaparush were real.
That you proved your theories to the world, and made people
look at history a little differently.”

Charles began to snicker. The sound was mixed with
coughs and bursts of spittle, but I recognized it for what it truly
was.

“That I’m proud of you, you mean?” he asked between
coughs.

“Yes,” I whispered.

He wheezed deep breaths, until he calmed enough to
speak easily again. “If I could change the past,” he said, “I’d
do to this whole temple what I did to that relief. I’d be a fail-
ure my entire life rather than let you be born.”

I couldn’t control myself any longer. Ugabe stepped into
view. Charles dropped his gun and put his fingers back on the
keyboard. They were still shaking, and I stopped pretending it
was arthritis. He was terrified.

Ugabe lurched forward. Genevieve, writhing and crawling
through the dirt, hissed, “I only wanted to help you.”

Charles smirked. “Of course you did,” he said. “You’re a
helpful zombie.” He drew another long breath, looked from
Ugabe to Genevieve to his screen, and gave a tiny smile.

“Checkmate, you bitch,” he said. He hit a key, and the
cave exploded.

T T T

My brother spent a year participating in experiments once
Billy found someone who believed their story, then nine
months in training once the project began in a formal way.
Billy didn’t live to see the end of it — reports had it that he died
in a helicopter crash, of all things, on his way to Brasilia. My
brother mourned, but he was strong, and he knew his mis-
sion. He put up with the secrecy, the tests, the hours of pour-
ing through old briefings and reports and videos. By the time
he left the Alcantara base, he had a more thorough knowledge
of how things worked at my labs than the generals themselves
did.

He infiltrated a follower group. He made it to my home.

267

Inheriting Red

But he slipped away from the tour before he was supposed to,
was ready to throw the entire mission away, because he had
heard that an infant was dying. Even knowing what Andrea
was, he wanted to save her life.

After finishing with my daughter, he turned and saw me.
He knew then that he could complete his mission after all. No
one had told him what would come next; like me, he’d never
wanted to hurt anyone. So they’d kept him in the dark for
twenty- one months.

I will never forget my brother. I wish I could have loved
him before he died.

4 4 bl-

under the cool sweat, the man’s hand felt warm. I raised
my arm to push him back — I didn’t like being touched — and
then felt the warmth spread. Uncomfortable and tingling, it
rolled through my body, making my knees shake.

Whenever someone joins us, I search their memories for
lilies. The truth is, it’s because I can’t smell so well myself
anymore. The nose decays quickly, and nothing else replaces
it; smell becomes a faint and distant thing.

When the warmth crawled through my skull, it felt like my
nose was burning. Then the scents came to me — the salt of
the stranger’s sweat, the disinfectant used to clean the floor,
the grease of my hair, and the odor of ashes and nicotine
around Doctor Milken. My daughter was thick with smells,
from her body, her blankets, and the amniotic fluid. They all
came to me at once — most of them unpleasant — and I reveled
in them.

I noticed, for the first time in a decade, how dry my mouth
was, and I felt the swirl of air conditioning against my skin. I
saw and heard with a clarity not possessed even by the newly
dead, and when I looked down at myself, I barely dared to
expect what was coming.

My skin was flushed and whole. I lifted a hand, pressed it
to my forehead. The old bullet wound was gone.

I looked at the man, and as I did I felt moisture trail down
my cheeks. In a cave in northern India, Charles, Genevieve,
and Ugabe were burning and being crushed by falling rock. I
barely cared anymore.

“I’m alive,” I breathed. I breathed. “You brought me back.”

He’d returned me to life. The implications began dawning
on me even then.

“I didn’t know,” I said, and swallowed. “I didn’t know this
could happen. I didn’t know you existed. ...”

268

Alexander Marsh Freed

I stopped feeling Genevieve and Ugabe, but even the mem-
ory of being inside them felt strange now. Dirty.

They hadn’t needed me after all. None of them had. This
man could have saved them for real.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I asked.

My brother opened his mouth to answer. There was the
tin drum sound of a gunshot, and he fell forward, onto me. I
felt something wet on my stomach, then heard two more
shots. They hit me in the chest after carving through my
brother. The wounds burned. They’d never burned before.

I wrapped my arms around my kinsman, and he wrapped
his arms around me. Down the hall, Doctor Sardinha was
turning a gun to her head.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”

I stayed with my brother as long as I could. Then I slipped
out of Rebecca’s dying body, and into Sean the lounge singer.
I walked through Doctor Sardinha’s blood, gazing at my
daughter’s face before going to preserve my brother’s memo-
ries. I was as gentle as I could be when I opened his skull and
ingested everything he knew.

•f T 4*

Doctor Milken found the camera hidden in Doctor
Sardinha’s lab coat, and the encrypted messages on her com-
puter. Even without Sardinha’s and Charles’ memories, it was
easy to understand their plan: convince my brother to bring
me back, then kill us both. They couldn’t trust what they
didn’t comprehend.

But while I’d preserved Rebecca, made her my own, she
wasn’t the body my mother gave birth to. That one was some-
where safe. And there’d never been a reason to let the resis-
tance know about it.

They’d killed my brother for nothing.

I found a new body, made a new speech. It was nothing
special; I just wanted to let the world know that I was still
around. And that I wasn’t going to stop.

I lied a little. I told them I still loved them.

But while I understand that saving their memories is the
right thing to do, it feels empty, now that I know there could
have been a better way. That chance is gone, of course, along
with most of my family. So I hold Andrea close at night, as I
prepare the world for her. If she survives the month — no one’s
sure why she’s sick — I won’t tell her about her uncle. She’ll
discover the truth eventually, but in the meantime I hope she
can find the joy I used to have.

269

Inheriting Red

In Georgia, my siblings find a rusting fallout shelter from
the sixties, and carefully pry open the door. Two dozen people
are crammed inside, sweating and trembling in the dark. We
block the exit, and three of my siblings march in, devouring
men and women for their pasts. I send my mind elsewhere,
and let them do what they will. I don’t bother to search for
lilies.

Goddamn Redneck
Surfer Zombies

MICHAEL J. JASPER

People stopped coming to the North Carolina coast when
the dead returned to the beach after four decades away. Got
to the point where folks couldn’t sit outside their own beach-
side trailers with a case of Bud without some rotting corpse
staggering up and asking for directions to the cemetery or the
bars or the bait shop, the whole time smelling like spoiled
tuna. They killed us for most of the entire tourist season
before we realized what they were up to, and actually did
something about ’em. Goddamn zombies.

Back at the season’s start, like now, I spent most of my
days down at the end of the pier, the longest one in the state,
where the stink of fish innards cooking in the sun never got
to me like the reek of dead-person guts in some walking
corpse does. If you come out to Long Beach — which you
should do, even now, with the zombies and all — to fish and
swim in the bath-warm water during the day and eat seafood
and drink cold ones with us at night, you’ll find me there at
the farthest tip of the pier, past the signs saying No Spectators
Beyond This Point and King Mackerel Fishing Only. If you give
a shout for Big Al, I’ll come over and say “hey” to you, long as
the kings aren’t biting.

Anyway, before things got messy again, I caught my limit
most days by noon, smoking and drinking with the other old
men with skin like leather and just enough teeth to hold their
Camels in place. After the doc threatened to cut a hole in my
neck, I stopped with the cancer sticks, but I still like a cold
Bud while I watch my lines in the salty, hot Carolina air.

High point of those days came late in the afternoon, when
the pretty girls came up and visited with us after a day of sun-
bathing and gossiping. Oh Lord, to be young again. Their
tanned stomachs were tight and their long hair was salty and
wet from the Atlantic, and they acted like they wanted to learn
about fishing. We all knew they weren’t interested in any of
that. They were up there on the pier with us for protection.

Because every afternoon, when the tide started to head
out, the dead came lurching out of the brush on the other side

Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies

271

of the dunes and headed for the waves. The girls didn’t want
to be alone on the beach wearing just their bits of bikini as the
zombies walked past, dragging their coffin lids behind ’em.
Couple of the girls even recognized their grandparents,
stripped down to their birthday suits, showing off their pale
gray skin. That shook ’em up pretty good, let me tell you.

Far as I could tell, the girls didn’t have nothing to worry
about. These zombies were here for one thing only — they
wanted to surf.

Some of us thought the zombies were attracted to the
waves because of the pull of the tides. Mort and Lymon had
their nicotine-and-six-pack theories about the moon’s effect
on the graveyards and the bodies buried in ’em. “Tidal forces
from the moon,” Mort said in his gravelly voice. “Pulls ’em up
outta the ground just like it makes the waves come in and
out. They put that cemetery too close to the ocean, that’s
what. Yeppers. Tidal forces.”

We all just laughed and tried not to look at the naked
corpses falling off their coffin lids like the newbies we called
“grommets” back in my surfing days. Ten of the dead were out
on the water that day, flinging their rotting and bloodless bod-
ies toward the next wave. I recognized Alfie and Zach, old bud-
dies from high school (flipped their car into the Intracoastal
Waterway one Saturday night in ’59 and drowned in three feet
of water) along with my own mother (lung cancer, ’82) surfing
next to four-decades-dead Purnell Austin, forever twenty-one.

They took some tremendous tumbles, like the time
Purnell was launched off his lid by a wave and slammed head-
first into the lid of the rotting girl next to him, sending pieces
of nose and teeth flying. That one was so bad I caught myself
moving out of my chair toward the water. But the surfing dead
don’t need any kind of first aid, not any more. Purnell climbed
back onto his coffin lid, twisted his head with both hands to
the left once, hard, and got ready for the next wave with a
laugh. Lucky he didn’t lose his head on that one.

The zombies’ laughter was like the cough of a lifelong
smoker, and it made the hairs on my arms stand up. Must’ve
been hard, laughing when you didn’t need to breathe any
more.

Quiet old Bob Mangum nodded his bald head toward the
undead surfers. “It’s the beginning of the end times, ’at’s what
it is. Nothing to do with no moon or no tidal forces.” He hob-
bled back to his cooler of shrimp bait and his five fishing lines.
“Keep an eye out for Jehovah ’n’ the horsemen,” he added.

Now, I’ve always been one to just let things be. Long as the

272

Michael J. Jasper

zombies left our people alone and no one went missing like
last time, I was fine without getting into some sort of hassle
with ’em. Cops didn’t care about the zombies either, so long
as no one was hurt. Still, there were more and more of ’em
every day, almost to the point where they’d taken over the
whole beach. And someone must’ve told the reporters this
time, ’cause for a while there, they were almost as thick
around here as the zombies.

Luckily, the film crews didn’t last long, not after we started
telling ’em it was all a hoax and they learned that the surfing
dead didn’t photograph well. All the zombies left were gray
smears on film that looked like they’d been faked to even an
old fart with bad eyes like mine. We told ’em they were wasting
their time and their film, but who ever paid attention to a
crusty old man like me? They were gone within a week with
no story and a pile of worthless film.

Tourists were another story. Of course, they were scared
shitless by the walking dead, whether they thought it all a big
put-on or not. Us locals can adjust to ’most anything, long as
it doesn’t get in the way of the fishing, but most tourists ran
off the instant they caught sight of some old zombie woman
limping up the beach, tits hanging to her belly button, drag-
ging her surf lid behind her like the train to a wedding dress.
Even worse were the dead young ’uns, the teens killed in
drunken car wrecks that went ’round as if they were showing
off their missing arms and legs. Made it hard to concentrate
on your John Grisham lawyer novel, or your gushy, Fabio-on-
the-cover romance paperback, I’m sure.

The tourists that did stick around, wasting their film with
more damn photos, didn’t last too long. The zombies were
“quaint” at first — swear to God I heard one of the Yankee
women say this, heard it all the way up on the pier — but when
their stink filled the air and the chunks of dead flesh started
washing up onto the beach, they skedaddled real quick.

While packing up the kiddies and their plastic shovels and
expensive umbrellas and chairs, some of the housewives
showed another side of things. I saw some of ’em suck in their
soft bellies when one of the fresher, not-dead-for-too-too-long
male zombies whizzed past on his surf lid, as if those mamas
had some sort of chance with a rotting old redneck boy whose
last memory was red ambulance lights or a doctor beating on
his chest a handful of years ago.

Now, I didn’t mind getting rid of loud and rude tourists —
most of ’em were Yankees anyhow, moved down here for their
high falutin’ tech jobs a few hours away up in Raleigh — but my

Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies 273

buddy Lou at the Surf ’n’ Suds Pier Restaurant and Angie at
the Wings store needed the cash that those tourists brought.
They couldn’t handle another bad season, not after three hur-
ricanes in the past five years, including the near miss from
barely a month earlier that had left half the beach underwater.
It was hard enough getting folks to come to Long Beach the
way it was, and then the goddamn undead showed up.

I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve watched the landscape
change as the ocean ate away the sand dunes and made the
new hotels the developer fools built sink and dip like leaking
ships, and in that time I saw the same sort of tourist come
down to our beaches. They’d pack up the brats, soak up the
sun ’til it burned ’em, spend their money in our shops, and try
to catch fish off the shallow sides of our pier. Like clockwork,
they’d leave one week later, not to return until the following
year. At the end of summer us locals cleaned up their mess
and got back to our own business. That was the way things
went.

The only disruption in the pattern was back in ’60. That
was the summer I came back to Long Beach to find the ceme-
teries from here to Southport empty, and the dead walking the
streets.

T T T

I’d been surfing for a decade by that point in time. I’d
started with my older brother’s board when I was ’most ten
years old, most times falling off it like a grommet before a
wave ever picked me up. But I stuck with it and spent most
days surfing instead of in school with the other kids. I always
figured one of these days I’d go back and get my diploma, but
then my sixtieth, then my seventieth birthday snuck up on
me, and after that I just didn’t see the point of it, really. I get
all I wanted in life with fishing.

That summer of 1960, when there weren’t waves big
enough to go surfing, I learned all about pier fishing. I figured
if I made friends with the fishermen on the pier, at the least
I’d get fewer sinkers thrown at me on those days that I surfed
a bit too close to their lines. Surfers and fishermen hardly ever
see eye to eye, dealing like they do with the ocean from two
very different angles. But bribed with enough smokes and
brews, the fishermen warmed to me and taught me all I’d ever
want to know. After that summer I never got hooked by a cast
or smacked with a thrown sinker.

And then the zombies came calling. It all started on a
Monday morning in early September, right after Hurricane

274

Michael J. Jasper

Donna blasted through. I was half-buzzed by ten in the morn-
ing, nursing my fifth beer, when the first body flopped onto
the flooded beach west of the pier. Looked like a damn fish
thrown onto the sand by a rough wave, except the ocean was
dead calm for a change. The body was shedding its pasty
white skin, along with the occasional body part, with each
spasm. An eyeball rolled back into the surf like a stray golf
ball hit by an idiot tourist golfer.

Me and the boys were down there in five seconds. In spite
of all our bad talk about the tourists, none of us wanted to see
one of ’em die. And no fisherman or surfer wants to see a
corpse on their beach. That’s what we all figured this was,
judging by the white skin of the man flailing on the sand: a
near- drowning .

He wouldn’t let us set him up to help him breathe, even
though Bob was positive he couldn’t get a pulse. For a mostly
dead fella, he had the kind of strength I’d never felt before. I
grabbed his arm, nearly sicking up my beers at the cold and
loose feel of his flesh, like the skin on uncooked chicken. He
lifted me right off the ground with that one arm.

It took us an hour to figure out what he was. His face had
swollen up, but I swore there was something familiar about
that crooked nose and that anchor tattoo on his shoulder.

Luckily the Oleandar Drive-In in Wilmington had been
playing a horror triple-feature earlier that summer, and my
buddy Marty had seen all three flicks, including I Walked With
a Zombie.

“That’s Jack Johnson!” Marty shouted. “Swear to God!
He’s one’a those zombers!”

The dead guy opened his one remaining eye and gave
Marty what looked like a pissed-off glare. That’s when I knew
it was Jack, because of those Paul Newman ladykiller eyes. Or
eye, I should say. His right one was floating up and down in
the surf like a bobber. Jack was polite and didn’t say anything
about Marty’s mangled terminology. Jack Johnson had
drowned a week ago, caught out in the hurricane trying to
save his boat.

“Ain’t no such thing as a zombie,” Bob said in his quiet
voice as we helped Jack to his feet. Bob had been old even
back then. If I was a fool like Marty, who died in ’Nam when
he fell over a trip wire after three hits of acid and blew his face
off, I’d be wondering if ol’ Bob wasn’t a “zomber,” too.

We didn’t know what else to do, so we handed Jack his
eye, which he popped back in its socket, and let him be. The
fish were biting, that’s all I can say in our defense. Marty left

Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies 275

us to go surfing, and Jack walked off in the opposite direction
of the pier.

We’d pretty much forgotten about him until we heard the
screaming coming from the Dairy Queen up the road.

Purnell Austin, one of the biggest guys I knew back in
school before I dropped out, had been stuffed into a garbage
can outside the DQ. Both his legs had been broken, and they
dangled out of the garbage can like dead flowers. But that
wasn’t the worst of it. When we pulled him out of the can, his
head was split in two, and over half of his brain was gone. The
top half of his head sat on a pile of bloody newspapers, look-
ing like a hairy pottery bowl.

Before I sicked up my Budweiser breakfast, I saw two
things that will stay with me until my dying day, and proba-
bly beyond even that.

The first was the teethmarks that had been left in the
pinkish-gray brain matter of Purnell’s battered skull.

The second was Jack Johnson’s sky-blue eyeball, staring
up at us from next to the garbage can.

T T T

When the dead started showing up this time, ’most every-
thing was different. The corpses on the beach were just as bad
as the crew from four decades ago for stinking and losing body
parts — but at least this time no one living has gone missing.
Back in ’60 we’d lost almost a dozen folks before we could get
the situation under control. We’d been able to keep the
reporters and the other authorities away. Only Sheriff
Johnson knew about the zombies back then, and he hadn’t
been keen on letting anyone outside of the Long Beach com-
munity know that his brother Jack was a “zomber” with a
taste for brains. We kept it hushed up, for our own good.

Seems to have worked out alright. This time no tourists
have turned up dead, with their heads cracked open like wal-
nuts, missing most of the gray shit that makes up people’s
brains. At least not yet.

The zombies came this time just for the surfing, and
nothing more.

+ T 4*

I take full responsibility for that. I was the one who taught
’em how to surf. Goes to show you can teach an old dog new
tricks, even if that old dog is dead. Or undead — however you
wanna call it.

Nobody else was having any sort of luck keeping the
zombies under control. You could shoot ’em or stab ’em with

276

Michael J. Jasper

a filleting knife, but they didn’t even flinch. If you were close
enough to stab at ’em you were probably a goner anyway. We
didn’t figure out until it was almost too late that we should’ve
been aiming at their heads the whole time.

After four of us young punks got killed by the zombies,
and I’d taken the worst beating of my life from Marty’s Great-
aunt Esther (dead of a stroke in ’38), we had to regroup and
find some other way to keep the zombies from chowing on our
brains like undead stoners with the munchies. If the outside
world heard about this, the town would shrivel up and die,
and we’d be good as dead then ourselves.

It was me who came up with the idea of surfing. I loved it,
I figured, so why wouldn’t the dead? If there was a heaven, I
figured it had clear skies and monster waves all day and night.

So we taught the zombies to surf. They took right to it,
even though their bodies were never as coordinated as they’d
been while they were alive. At least we didn’t have to worry
about anyone drowning.

Old Bob had the idea of collecting the brains from the fish
we caught off the pier to give the dead to eat, sort of a good-
will gesture, and they went along with it. For the rest of fall,
nobody else went missing or showed up with a scooped- out
skull. The zombies surfed up to the start of winter, until
another tropical storm blew up in November. They made one
last surf as the storm passed over, and then they went to rest
again back in their waterlogged graves, settling their coffin
lids and surfboards back on top of them like blankets.

T + T

This has been the summer for surfing, that’s for sure. The
waves have been unbelievable, bringing with ’em the biggest
fish I’ve ever caught. Just last week I pulled in a fifteen-pound
king mackerel from off the pier and nearly pissed myself. I was
getting ready to fillet it up after Lou took my picture with it
when I smelled the stink of zombie on the fish. I tossed it over
the side of the pier, hoping no one saw me do it.

I should have known then that the dead had overstayed
their visit once again. I continued to ignore ’em, I really did,
but they were affecting my livelihood now. A man’s got to fish,
and a man’s got to eat.

Some of the other guys were noticing it, too. Most of the
fish we caught went back over the side after a quick weighing
and measuring. The too-sweet stink of rot was on our hands,
and we couldn’t get it off no matter how much we wiped ’em
on our shorts and shirts.

Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies Til

Like I said before, I’ve always been one to let things be. If
I got hungry enough I could cook the hell out of the fish I
caught and choke down the zombie-tainted meat. If I had to.
In fact I’d almost resigned myself to this two days ago when I
heard a gaggle of our young girls on the beach. They were all
screaming and pointing at the ocean.

Now, let me explain something to you about a man and
fishing. If his concentration is just right, with the sun keeping
his head warm and the fish keeping the muscles in his arms
tense, you can drop a nuclear bomb on the bait house behind
him and he’d only check his lines and maybe blink once or
twice. So I’m not too surprised that I’d never noticed it had
gotten so bad with the zombies.

Anyway, after hearing the commotion, I set down my reel
like I was in slow motion, like it was the last time I’d ever see
it, and I turned to look at the beach, where the girls were still
screaming.

The ocean was thick with the goddamn redneck surfer
zombies.

They were perched on top of their coffin lids, leaning into
the waves from the back half of the lid, just like I’d taught ’em
decades ago. It was as if they had some sort of Stick-Em keep-
ing ’em attached to their lids, because not a single one fell off.

And that was when I noticed that all the zombies were
aiming in the same direction, their surf lids pointed toward a
circle of blood fifty yards beyond where the waves broke.

Old Bob was already running down the pier toward the
beach, with Mort and Lymon busting a gut trying to keep up.
I dropped my line, grabbed the pneumatic spear- fishing gun
from the crow’s nest upstairs, and did the best swan dive off
the side of the pier that a seventy-six-year-old redneck could
do, right into the salty waves. I thought I’d broken my neck
until I resurfaced, eyes stinging and head reeling.

“Shoot ’em in the head,” Marty had told me all those years
ago. “It’s the only way to take ‘em out. ...”

We’d been smoking and drinking all night on the beach,
watching the corpses surf in the moonlight. Marty was leav-
ing for Fort Leavenwood the next week for basic training, and
then he’d be off to Vietnam a few years later, waiting for his
encounters with acid and the tripwire.

“Blow their brains out, huh?” I finished off my bottle of
beer and launched it at out at dead Purnell out there surfing.
He was barely a month dead. It smacked him in the chest and
knocked a chunk of gray flesh into the waves with a soft plop.

“Yeah. Go for the head,” Marty said, nodding. “Spread

278 Michael J. Jasper

their brains out all over the place, so they can’t put ‘em back
together.”

Years later, after catching a midnight showing of Night of
the Living Dead, I’d wondered if that George Romero fella had
been out to Long Beach that summer, checking out the situ-
ation, maybe even talking to Marty. In any case, Marty had
been right about the head shots. They stopped the ones that
wouldn’t leave the locals alone, and motivated the rest to pick
another hobby. The zombies were much more interested in
learning to surf once we blew off a few rotting heads.

As I swam through the waves after taking my dive off the
pier, my old heart pounding in my ribs, I thought about Marty
and all the others from Long Beach, including those of my
friends who were now zombies. I wished there had been
enough of ol’ Marty left for ’em to ship back to us. He always
loved catching a good wave.

Half a minute later I was there, outside a ring of thirty surf
lids, each holding one zombie apiece. They were surrounding
the bloody froth, watching the struggle with dumb, blank faces.

“Get back,” I shouted, raising the gun and aiming it at the
closest zombie. The coppery stink of blood was in the air,
mixed with the zombie’s odor of rot and the salty spray of the
waves. I dog-paddled my way to the middle of the coffin lids
and saw that the struggling had stopped. I lowered the spear
gun and waited. Just like that, a zombie’s head and shoulders
lifted from the water, followed by the lifeless body of Janie
Winters, covered in blood.

“Bastards!” I screamed as I pulled the trigger of the pneu-
matic gun.

I probably would have taken off the head of the zombie
holding Janie, sending her under again, if the zombie closest
to the two of ’em — Purnell Austin, actually, of all damn
people — hadn’t thrown himself in front of the spear and
caught it with the back of his head. The spear got stuck in his
skull, but still managed to scattered most of his face. The
zombies closest to him were showered with whitened bits of
brain and dried strips of brown flesh.

“Daaaa-aaamn,” Alfie, the car wreck zombie, said in his
guttural voice. “Why’d ya do thaaaa-aaat?”

Just like the summer of ’60, it made me want to retch,
having to kill someone who used to be my neighbor. But just
like last time, they’d left me no choice. Or so I thought.

I dropped the gun when Janie moaned. A jagged gash ran
the length of her thin arm, and that’s when I realized how
close I had come to making a huge mistake.

Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies

279

Blinking saltwater and sweat out of my eyes, I saw what
had really been going on. The corpse of an eight-foot-long shark
floated behind the zombie holding Janie, its side peppered with
bloody, fist-sized holes. Four of the zombies had been tom to
shreds fighting off the shark, which had gone after Janie, but
they’d survive.

Well, maybe survive isn’t the right word. But you know
what I mean.

T T T

We made an agreement, the zombies and us living folks.
They can come surfing every couple of years during the low
season, long as they leave when we ask ’em to and stick to
eating fish — not human — brains. Otherwise, us humans will
start digging up graves and blowing off some zombie heads.

To our shock, they agreed, even though I could tell it was
killing ’em — ha ha ha — to leave the waves behind for the year.
The surfing is that good ’round here.

And hey, if they’re willing to keep the waters shark- free for
their surfing pleasure, that’s fine with us.

Janie is doing better, and is likely to get most of the
movement back in her arm after the shark bite heals. She
stays on the shore all the time these days, concentrating on
her tan instead of swimming or surfing.

Meanwhile, I keep a close eye on the cemeteries from here
to Southport, as well as the Weather Channel. You never
know what the next hurricane might stir up, and I can’t say
I’m partial to cooking my fish until the taste of zombie is fried
out of it.

But, at the same time, I know I’m getting on in years, and
I’m sort of looking forward to surfing again someday soon.

Got a coffin lid all picked out, too.

Night Shift

REBECCA BROCK

“We got a problem upstairs!”

I didn’t have to even ask. I knew what Sharon was talking
about. It had to be Tina, one of the new kids who had been
assigned to the shelter just a day before all this shit started.
She was thirteen years old and already had a ladder of scars
up both wrists. We were supposed to be keeping her on sui-
cide watch, but all of a sudden we had a few more pressing
issues to keep us occupied. The life or death of one emotion-
ally fucked up kid wasn’t quite the priority that it used to be.

I glanced over my shoulder to Sharon, but I couldn’t get
away from the door; at that moment, the only thing between
us and about twenty or so screaming dead people was me. Of
all the nights for me to come in early. . . .

“What happened?” I shouted as I worked on nailing a
thick piece of plywood over the entrance. Thank God we’d
been in the middle of replacing a section of the kitchen floor
when all this started. I didn’t like to think of what would be
happening right now if we hadn’t had plywood and nails lying
around.

“Tina broke a mirror,” Sharon said. She stared warily at
the rotted hands grasping through the holes in the boarded
windows, then moved closer anyway. I had to give her credit
for that.

“And?” I missed my mark and slammed the hammer into
the back of a gray-green hand. Bone crunched, but there was
no scream of pain. Bastards didn’t feel anything.

“And she slit her wrists,” Sharon said, keeping her voice
low so the other kids couldn’t hear her. I doubted any of them
would have cared anyway. Most of them were only worried
about their own asses.

“Is she dead?”

Sharon nodded. I knew she was probably feeling guilty.
She’d been a relief worker for a couple years longer than me,
and she was the type of person who actually cared about the
messed up kids we had to deal with, even the ones who threat-
ened to kill her. If the world hadn’t been ending all around us,
she’d be tom up over Tina’s death. All it meant to me was that
we had to get the kid out of the house.

281

Night Shift

I looked around. Danny and Larry were taking care of the
porch-level windows, using bookshelves they’d pulled off the
walls for a makeshift barrier. Joanie was piling up boxes of
canned food from the pantry. We’d decided to try to hole up in
the attic for as long as it took for help to find us. If they found
us. I wasn’t holding out much hope for any saviors to arrive.

“Sean! Take over!” I yelled, tossing the hammer over to one
of the bigger guys, a surly teenager who was now so pale his
zits seemed to glow against his skin. He’d been placed in the
children’s shelter because one day he’d decided he didn’t like
the way his mother treated him, so he grabbed her hair while
she was driving and slammed her head into the side window.
I didn’t like Sean and he didn’t like me, but since I outweighed
him by a good fifty pounds and stood a foot taller than him,
he stayed out of my way.

“Sean! Now!”

He acted like he didn’t want to get close enough to the
door to start pounding nails, so I grabbed him by the neck of
his T-shirt and held him close enough to get a feel of the dead
hands reaching through the openings between the boards.
“Get your ass going or I swear to God I’ll throw you out there.”

Sean got to work.

The entire shelter was in chaos. We’d been at full capacity
when the trouble started: six girls and four boys, with four
counselors — Sharon, Danny, Larry, and Joanie — to handle
them until the night shift arrived. I made it five. Most of the
girls had become either catatonic or screechy, useless for any-
thing but attracting more of those fuckers outside. The boys
were trying to hold on to their tough-guy attitude, but most
had already pissed their pants once they saw what was just
outside the door. A couple of them still thought they were
badasses, Sean being the worst of the bunch. I could tell that
they were just waiting for their chance to do something. I
wasn’t looking forward to the time when I’d have to give them
some kind of weapon. They’d be more likely to use it on me
than on the dead things.

We were between shifts when the first ones showed up
outside the house. Sharon had called me before that and
asked if I could come in a couple of hours early to help with
some of the troublemakers. Like everybody else, I’d heard the
news reports about weird shit happening in other parts of the
country, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. There’d been
so much of it lately that I’d tuned it out.

Goddamn it. If I’d just waited to come in, I would have
been home when it started. . . .

282

Rebecca Brock

But I couldn’t think about home. I couldn’t think about
what might be happening there.

“What are we going to do about Tina?” Sharon asked. I
could hear the panicky rise of her voice. She was close to los-
ing it. I couldn’t blame her if she did; she’d left her kids with
a sitter and wasn’t able to get anyone on the phone before the
lines went dead. I was surprised she’d lasted this long.

“How long has it been?” I asked as I ran for the steps.

“I don’t know — two, maybe three hours. I lost track of her
once everything started.” Sharon caught my arm before I
could go into the girls’ bedroom. “Eddie . . . what are we going
to do?”

“We need to get her out of the house and — ”

“Not that. The kids.”

I didn’t know what to tell her. What could I tell her? That
everything was going to be all right? That we just had to sit
tight and wait for the cops to come and escort everybody
home? I didn’t even know if we still had homes to go to.
Whatever was happening was happening fast. We still had
power, but I didn’t figure that would last for much longer. The
scraps of news I was able to overhear on TV made it sound
like everywhere had it just as bad as what we were dealing
with here. The world had gone to hell and there wasn’t any-
thing anybody could do to stop it.

But before I could say any of that to Sharon, I heard
something thump against the floor on the other side of the
bedroom door, a slap like raw meat hitting concrete. Sharon
and I looked at each other. I think we both knew, but didn’t
want to believe it.

“I thought you said — ”

“I checked her pulse. She’d bled out. ...” Sharon took a
step away from the door. “I know she was dead.”

The door shook in its hinges as the thing on the other side
threw its weight against it. Underneath the shrill screams, the
grunts and groans, I could hear it scratching at the wood with
its nails, like it could claw its way through to get to us.

Downstairs, glass shattered. A couple of the kids screamed.

“Shit!” I ran for the stairs. “Keep her in there!”

Sharon made a grab for the doorknob just as it began to
turn. “Eddie! She’s opening the door!”

Down below, the dead things were pushing their way
through a broken window. One of them had already gotten
hallway in, its stomach caught on a piece of jagged glass.
Behind me, Sharon held onto the doorknob, trying to keep
Tina from opening the door from the inside.

Night Shift

283

Fuck.

I ran back to Sharon and shoved her away from the door.
“Get down there with the kids. Now!”

The door opened as soon as Sharon let go of the knob. I
felt the impact of the thing before I even saw it launch itself
out of the bedroom. I couldn’t think of anything but keeping
those teeth away from me. I grabbed Tina by the hair and
yanked her head back, hard, turning it around as I forced her
down the long hallway, toward the window at the far end. It
didn’t take much to throw her through the glass. Tina hadn’t
been a very big girl.

By the time I got back downstairs, the dead thing that had
been caught on the glass had managed to get inside. It came
at me. For a second I couldn’t react. The guy’s face looked like
it had been ripped off and eaten. Its nose was gone, a gaping
hole right in the middle of its face. Its cheeks were ragged and
torn. Intestines hung from its slashed gut. It reached for me
and I could see that chunks of its arms had been torn away.
There were teethmarks in its skin.

Before the thing could touch me, I grabbed its arm and
yanked it behind its back, putting it in one of the restraint
positions we used on the kids, forcing it to the floor. It kept
twisting its head around, hoping to take a chunk out of me,
so I did the only thing I could do: I slammed its head into the
floor as hard as I could, over and over again, until I could hear
the bones shattering and feel its skull caving in beneath my
hand. I didn’t stop until it quit moving.

And then I realized how quiet it had gotten. I looked
around. Sharon had gathered the kids together and was herd-
ing them toward the steps. Joanie looked like she was just
about to break, twitching at every creak of the boards on the
porch, a Bible clutched to her chest. Danny stood at the door,
watching the dirt road in front of the house. The shelter was
at the top of a hill, one road in and out. If we could get to the
van . . .

No. No way that was going to happen. The kids couldn’t
be controlled. I’d already seen a couple of the boys palming
kitchen knives when they thought nobody was watching. They
wouldn’t be thinking of anything but getting their own asses
out of here. And I didn’t particularly want to end up with a
knife blade between my shoulders.

“What’s happening?” Larry asked quietly. His voice
sounded raw. It was the first time since it had all started that
any of us had had a chance to think about it. “What are those
things?”

284

Rebecca Brock

“It’s Judgement Day,” Joanie whispered. “The dead are
rising up from their graves to punish the sinners.”

“Shut up, Joanie.” I went to the door and took a look out-
side. There were five or six of the things shuffling around on
the front lawn, moving in and out of the porch lights’ orange
glow. I moved to the side, pressing my face against the boards
so I could look down the road. The moon was full, so I could
see clearly enough to count at least seven more on their way.
Shit. ...

“Start moving the food and water upstairs,” I said, not
looking away from the advancing dead things. I knew they
were dead. They had to be dead. Some of them had been torn
up pretty bad — guts hanging out of their bellies, faces shred-
ded, limbs missing. They were dead, but they didn’t look like
they’d ever been buried. I just couldn’t figure out how it all
started so fast. And why we never had any warning.

“What about the basement?” Danny asked. “We might be
safer — ”

“Fine. Go down to the basement.” I looked away from the
window long enough to stare hard at Danny. “But I’m getting
my ass up to the attic when the time comes. I don’t care what
you want to do.”

The rumbling of an engine caught us all by surprise. I
looked out again, joined by Sharon and Larry. The dead
things were gone. For a minute all I could see was headlights,
then I recognized Bob Carson’s pickup truck as it bounced up
the rutted road. Bob worked night shift with me. I hadn’t real-
ized it was so late.

But why the hell was he coming in to work? Why bother,
unless — ?

I hurried to flip on the outdoor floodlights and then almost
immediately wished I hadn’t. I could see the look on his face
as he stopped the truck just in front of the sidewalk leading
up to the porch. The man was scared shitless. The grill of his
truck was covered with blood and meat and bits of hair. I
didn’t want to know what he’d seen on his way in. He must
have thought he’d be safer here.

Bob looked both ways, saw that it was clear, and moved
to open the truck’s door.

“Don’t get out!” I yelled, knowing he couldn’t hear me. I
grabbed a hammer and started prying loose the boards so he
could get inside. Just because he couldn’t see any of those
things didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Fuckers were prob-
ably hiding in the dark. Just waiting.

Bob jumped out of the truck and hit the ground running.

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And it was like he’d triggered some kind of alarm, because as
soon as he was three steps from the truck cab they came at
him, all of them at once.

“Help me!” I shouted to Larry and Danny. They didn’t
move, unable to look away from what was going on outside.
Joanie was just as useless, spouting out prayers and bits of
some godawful hymn, crying and singing and babbling all at
once.

One of the boards finally gave way and I looked over to see
that Sharon was prying out nails alongside me. I chanced
another look outside. Bob was surrounded by the things. He
pushed them aside and took the porch steps two at a time,
just barely getting away from their grasping hands. He looked
at me. I think he knew he wasn’t going to make it.

“Let me in!” He threw his weight against the front door, rat-
tling the doorknob, crying as he pounded at the wood. Behind
him, five of the dead things closed in. One of them was a little
girl holding a Raggedy Ann doll. I had the crazy thought that
she shouldn’t be out so late.

Two boards were down. Three left to go. We weren’t going
to make it. I looked around and saw that one of the porch win-
dows was covered by a tabletop. Larry and Danny had used it
to cover the hole where the thing had gotten inside earlier.

“Bob! Go to the left window! Now!”

I sprinted over to the window and managed to pull off the
tabletop with my bare hands. I smashed out the rest of the
glass with my hammer and leaned out. One of the things was
on me in an instant. It grabbed me by the hair and yanked my
head to the side, scraping my throat against the wood of the
windowsill. I felt splinters go in. I swung the hammer and
caught it in the wrist, shattering the bones with just enough
force to make it let go of me. I swung again and buried the
hammer’s claw end between its eyes. It went down, stayed
down.

Bob came barreling around the corner of the porch. He’d
been bitten a couple of times. His T-shirt was soaked with
blood. The things were right behind him, moving faster than
dead people had a right to move — as if dead people had a right
to move at all. I heard footsteps to my left and saw more of the
bastards coming at the window. Fuck. There were probably
fifteen of them on the porch alone.

“Jesus, Bob! Come on!” I reached for him and he made a
lunge for my hand. I ducked back into the house, pulling him
along with me. One of the things, an old woman with knitting
needles sticking out of her throat, had grabbed him around

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the waist and was gnawing at his belly. Bob screamed. It was
the worst sound I have ever heard in my life.

I think I was ciying at that point, but all I could think
about was getting Bob inside, away from the things that were
biting and chewing and ripping at him. I pulled, but they
pulled back, like it was a tug-of-war with Bob as the prize.
One of the things bit into his throat and an arc of blood
sprayed out, hitting me full in the face.

He was looking at me when he died. And I think Bob knew
exactly when I let go of his hand and let them have him. In
those last seconds, I don’t think he forgave me.

“Help me,” I said to someone, anyone. I lifted the tabletop
and put it back into place, hammering one nail after another
as quickly as I could, smelling Bob’s blood on my hands.
Tasting it in my mouth. The claw of the hammer was covered
with something black and thick. Brains, I guessed.

Sharon had managed to snap Danny and Larry out of
their shock, and they all helped me secure the window. The
things outside were too preoccupied with their catch to worry
about storming the house for a while. I don’t know if the
others had realized it yet, but we were fucked.

“I can’t stay here,” Danny said abruptly, backing away
from all of us. He looked at me and I swear to God his eyes
were just blank. They looked like the eyes of the things out-
side the house.

“Where are you going to go?” I asked, wiping my hands on
my jeans, using the sleeve of my shirt to wipe Bob’s blood off
my face. I spat to clear the saltiness of it out of my mouth.
“We’ve got to get upstairs — ”

Danny shook his head. “I gotta get out of here, man.”

“You can’t—”

“You’re not stopping me, Ed.” Danny stepped forward, the
hammer in his hand. He didn’t raise it, didn’t threaten, but I
could tell that he’d use it on me, and happily, if I got between
him and the door. “Come with me. We’ve got a chance if we
stay together.”

Sharon and I looked at each other. I could see that she
was tempted.

“What about the kids?” I asked quietly.

“What? You’re going to stay here and protect a bunch of
punks and junkies? Fuck ’em, man.” Danny shook his head.
“I’ve got to get home.”

Larry stood by the window, looking at the front porch
through a small opening in the boards. “I think you can get to
your car, but you’ve gotta go now.”

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Danny looked at me. “You coming?”

I wanted to go. Any other time I would have gone. I hated
the job. Hated the night shift. Hated the parade of juvenile sex
offenders and drug addicts and petty criminals that I saw
walk through here on a daily basis. There wasn’t a single
damn thing to make me stay.

But they were kids. In the end, they were just a bunch of
scared kids.

“I gotta go,” Danny said. “Come on while they’re distracted.”

“You’ll be safer here,” I said, knowing it was probably not
true. Danny began tearing down the rest of the wood covering
a broken window, making a hole big enough to crawl through.
“We can barricade ourselves upstairs — ”

“And then what? Starve to death? Fuck that, man. I’ll take
my chances out there.” Danny hesitated at the window, look-
ing at us like he might have wanted us to stop him.

And then he was gone, through the hole and onto the
porch. He jumped down the porch steps and made a mad run
for the parking lot. I actually thought he might make it . . .
until he dropped his keys at the car door. Even before the
pack of the things moved, I could see them in the darkness,
just waiting. Their eyes caught the light and glowed like cats’
eyes. I think Joanie saw them, too, because she screamed.

And then they pounced.

I turned away from the window and closed my eyes for a
second. Joanie’s screams got the girls started again, but even
underneath all their noise, I could still hear Danny crying out.
And I could hear them ripping and tearing and . . . eating him.

I picked up a hammer and a board and propped it against
the open space. “Somebody help me fix this hole.”

T T T

The movies got it all wrong. The bad things didn’t end just
because the sun came up. By daylight there were even more
of the dead people milling around the shelter. So far, by some
dumb luck, the barricades were still holding at the doors and
windows. It helped that they’d stopped banging on the boards
so much, probably because they couldn’t smell us anymore.
We’d moved the kids and supplies up to the attic as soon as
we finished plugging up the holes and reinforcing everything.

I spent the rest of the night sitting at the window, watch-
ing it all like I was God or something. I saw Danny rise up and
take his place with the others. It looked like he was missing
about ten pounds of flesh, most of it from his chest and stom-
ach. Once I thought he looked up and saw me, but no way that

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could happen. Those things didn’t think like that. They
couldn’t feel. They just attacked. And ate. They didn’t have
any human intelligence left. And despite Joanie’s praying and
hymn singing, I didn’t think they had any souls, either.

The kids finally settled down at dawn, curling up in old
sleeping bags against the far wall. I wasn’t worried too much
about the girls, but something wasn’t right with Sean and his
gang. I kept seeing nervous looks pass between them, kept
hearing whispers. There were just four of them — all but Sean
barely big enough to reach my armpit — but if they decided to
pull a stunt while Larry, Sharon, and me were distracted . . .

“I hope it was quick.”

I looked up. Sharon was standing beside me, staring out
past the parking lot, past the milling crowd of dead people in
the yard.

“You hope what was quick?” I rubbed at my eyes. It felt
like someone had sprinkled ground glass into them.

“My kids.” Sharon looked over at me and smiled sadly. “I
know they’re not alive. I don’t think Abby would have known
what to do to protect them.”

The matter-of-fact tone of her voice bothered me. Her eyes
were red and swollen, and I’d heard her crying quietly all
night, once we’d gotten settled in the attic. But the fact that
she’d actually accepted that there was no hope made me won-
der if it wouldn’t have been kinder to all of us to just open the
doors and get it over with. Why fight so hard when there was
nothing to win?

“I just can’t stand not being sure,” Sharon said, still star-
ing out to the road, to the escape so close but so out of our
reach. “I keep imagining all these different ways that it might
have happened. And I can hear them screaming — ” Sharon’s
voice, thick with sudden tears, trembled. “And I can see those
things . . . tearing at them. Oh, God. ...”

She covered her face with her hands and I could tell that
whatever strength she’d once possessed had finally run out.
As she sank to the floor, rocking back and forth, wailing loud
enough to wake the kids, I thought I should do something for
her. Put my arms around her. Try to comfort her. Something.

But I didn’t. There was no comfort to be found anywhere,
least of all with me. I had my own dead to mourn. I’d left a
pregnant wife and my mother at home, all because my damn
job needed me. I should have been there, protecting them,
instead of here, with these strangers, these people I didn’t even
like.

I could have comforted Sharon, lied to her and told her that

Night Shift 289

everything would be all right, but I didn’t. Instead, I went over
to the pile of supplies to ration out the morning meal.

+ + 4 *

It didn’t take long for the kids’ natural tendencies to kick
back into gear. By darkfall of that first day in the attic, bore-
dom overtook them, what with no Playstation games or MTV
to keep their short attention spans occupied. To entertain
themselves they stole food from each other, fought, made
crude weapons out of jagged metal lids. Two of the girls came
to blows over a piece of lukewarm Spam.

And then there was Sean.

He knew he had Larry cowed. Larry came from the “we
just need to reach them emotionally” school of counseling and
always wanted to know how the kids were feeling, what they
were thinking. It was horseshit and I knew it and the kids
knew it. There were dozens of nights when they had to call me
in to settle down fights on Larry’s shift because he didn’t want
to get in the middle of a couple of prepubescent punks.

Joanie was just as bad, only she used religion as her
bludgeon. The kids had learned to steer clear of doing any-
thing in front of Joanie because if she caught them it would
mean two hours of Bible study and an hour and a half of
preaching and sermonizing to hammer her point home. The
kids despised her. None of them respected what little author-
ity she managed to have. They knew they could get away with
murder, as long as they paid lip service to God and prayed a
little with her. Then she’d forgive them and they’d be free to
do whatever the hell they wanted.

By full dark, Joanie and Sharon seemed to have switched
personalities. Sharon couldn’t stop crying and Joanie discov-
ered that this was the moment for which she had been wait-
ing and praying all her life: the Rapture. I tried not to listen to
her ranting, but she had a couple of the girls mesmerized with
her stories of Apocalypse and the dead rising up for their final
judgment. I didn’t care what she wanted to believe, didn’t care
what she wanted to do, but it was pissing me off to see her
wasting our drinking water by using it to baptize the girls.

The situation was getting worse by the minute. I couldn’t
stop thinking about Beth and Mom. Like Sharon, I kept imag-
ining what had happened to them, what they might have done
when the dead came to our door. We live in a little house
about five minutes away from the shelter; I know that what-
ever brought those things here would have brought them to
my home, too.

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Rebecca Brock

Beth was six months pregnant. We would have had a little

girl.

I knew better than to think that they were still alive.

But I had to know for sure. All through that first day, the
thoughts kept eating at me. Even though I knew they were
gone, could feel that they were gone, I didn’t know for sure.
And it was killing me. It felt like an itch right in the middle of
my back. My hands and feet twitched with wanting to move,
to go, to get away.

Instead, I agreed to take the first watch. Around ten or so,
with nothing better to do, everyone else had finally gone to
sleep. Sharon was edging past grief and into catatonia, curled
up in the far comer of the attic. Joanie and her two disciples
slept with open Bibles lying across their chests like shields.
Sean and the others slept huddled together like wild dogs on
the other side of the room.

This was what I had chosen over my family.

“You’re going to go, aren’t you?”

Sharon was awake, watching me from her corner. Until
she said the words, I hadn’t actually thought I could do it.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “I am.”

“Will you check on Jamie and Lisa for me?” Sharon smiled
slightly and shook her head. Even in the darkness, I could see
that there was something wrong with that smile. “I know
they’re probably up past their bedtimes. They love to stay up
late.”

I nodded, not really knowing what else to do. “I’ll check on
them for you.”

“Good. And tell them Mommy’s going to be a little late,
okay? They worry about me if I don’t tell them when I’m com-
ing home.”

I stood and quietly opened the window. From the attic I
could climb right out onto the porch roof. Then it was just a
few feet to the ground. I could make it, easy, as long as I had
plenty of room between me and the dead things.

I felt for my keys. I’d have to get them out before making
the drop. My car was just a few feet from the porch. I could
make it. I know I could.

“And tell them Mommy loves them,” Sharon whispered,
already falling asleep again. She was sleeping more and more
now. I guessed that was better; being asleep beat the hell out
of being conscious.

I ducked out the window, hesitating with one leg out and
one still inside. I felt like a coward taking off in the middle of the
night and leaving them, but I knew that the downstairs was

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secure enough to buy them at least a few more days. There
was enough food to last them if they were careful, and the
kids had Larry and Joanie to watch over them. I wasn’t leav-
ing them high and dry. Hell, if anything, I would be helping
them more by leaving. Maybe I could find the cops or the
National Guard, get everybody out before the food ran dry or
the barricades gave way.

That’s what I was thinking as I climbed out. I almost had
myself believing it, too.

T T T

It felt weird being outside again. Almost wrong. The smell
of those things was overwhelming, like a slaughterhouse at
high noon. As I made my way down the incline of the roof, I
could hear their moans and gasps. It almost sounded like they
were talking to each other. The thought of them being smart
enough to communicate, smart enough to group together and
hunt in packs, made my stomach feel hollow and greasy. I’d
brought a baseball bat as a weapon. Now, as I got closer to
those walking dead men, the Louisville Slugger didn’t seem
nearly enough. A fully loaded Uzi wouldn’t have been enough.

I scooted down the last bit of roof. One jump to the
ground and then a few feet to the right and I’d be at my car.
By my count there were three of the things that might give me
trouble. Otherwise, it was a clear shot.

I fished the keys out of my pocket and got ready. And then
I jumped.

There were a dozen of the them grouped together on the
porch, and I think I surprised them as much as they sur-
prised me. I was running for my car before they could move. I
managed to duck two of the three I’d been worried about, but
the third got close enough to touch me. Their hands aren’t
cold, but room temperature warm. And they feel wet — from
the decay, I guess. When they touch you, you feel like you’ve
been marked, tagged for them to get later. They had all the
time in the world.

I tried not to think as I ran those few feet to the car. I had
my keys in a deathgrip. I’d played out the scene in my mind:
Hit the door. Unlock it Slide into the front seat Close and lock
the doors. Drive home as fast as you can. All the things I
should have done when the shit first started.

I dodged and weaved. Finally, the upper half of an old
woman, which I’d missed from my vantage on the roof some-
how, was the only dead thing between me and my car door,
and I managed to jump over its grasping hands without it

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Rebecca Brock

even touching me. I looked around as I shakily unlocked the
door. The closest ones were still a good ten feet away. I had
time. I couldn’t believe how easy it was proving to be.

The door opened and I dove inside my car, locking up even
as I made sure all the windows were up. Then I took a second
to close my eyes and breathe. I’d been holding my breath
since jumping down from the roof. My chest burned. My
hands felt locked in a deathgrip around my keys and the
baseball bat. I had to force myself to unclench my muscles.
Unless the fuckers could chew through glass and steel, I was
safe for a minute.

They surrounded the car, throwing themselves on the
hood, smearing their gray flesh on the windows as they
scratched at the glass. Their moaning was even louder now,
and I had the feeling that they were calling others of their kind.
Their strength was in numbers, and with enough help, they
might be able to break a window or even flip a car. Then I’d be
trapped, helpless, and they could just crawl in with me and —

That was all I needed to imagine.

The car started on the first attempt. I hadn’t even consid-
ered that it wouldn’t. I edged forward slowly at first, but the
stupid things refused to move. They were deliberately block-
ing my way.

I floored it.

The dead things went down like grass under a mower. And
God help me, but it felt good to hear their bones cracking
beneath my wheels. I think I was laughing as I plowed through
them. Maybe I was crying. I don’t know. There doesn’t seem
much difference between the two now.

I went home.

4 4 * 4

No one was there.

I cut the engine but left the keys in the ignition and the
door unlocked. The house’s front door was gone. All the win-
dows were broken. Every light was on.

But nothing moved. Not even the dead things. They’d
taken what they’d wanted and moved on.

I shouldn’t have gone inside, but I couldn’t help myself. I
knew that there was no chance Beth or Mom was alive, but I
had to be certain. I knew I’d never be able to sleep again if
there was even a chance that I’d walked away and left them
hurt or dying inside our own home.

I never thought about what I’d do if I found them any other
way.

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Night Shift

The house was absolutely still. I think that bothered me
more than the splintered doors or the smears of blood and
God-knew-what along the walls. I searched every room. The
fuckers had been everywhere. There was nowhere Mom and
Beth could have hidden. Even if I had been home, I don’t
think I could have made this place safe for us.

The only room I couldn’t go in was the nursery. From the
doorway I could see that there was blood on the walls,
smeared into the rainbow-patterned wallpaper that Beth had
loved. They’d died in there. And they were probably walking
around somewhere right now. Beth and the baby still inside
her. Mom.

Dead, but not really gone. I had no illusions.

I spent the rest of the night curled up in the hall, just out-
side the nursery, staring at the bloody splatters all over those
rainbows, wondering which was Beth’s and which was Mom’s.

And after a while, like an idiot, I slept.

T T T

It was dusk when I woke up again. I think I’d half-hoped
that the dead things would find me while I was asleep. They
didn’t. I was still alive. But now I knew what I had to do.

It didn’t take long for me to find everything I needed. I
boxed up all the canned food in the pantry, all the bottled
water and juices and Coke that we had. I grabbed flashlights
and batteries, my old camping gear, blankets and pillows,
everything I thought I could use, and loaded it all in my trunk.

I slammed the trunk and looked back at my house. We’d
only been living there a few months. Not enough time to create
a bunch of sentimental memories.

So there was one more thing I had to do before going back
up to the shelter.

I went around to the back, where I kept the kerosene grill.
I’d just barbecued steaks for us a couple of nights ago, before
the world began to end.

It was an old house. It’d burn quick.

I just wanted it gone.

+ T 4-

The fire drew the dead. I sat in my car for a long time,
watching the flames, listening to the static on the radio. No
broadcasts. Not a surprise. I don’t think I wanted to know
what was going on in the cities.

The things stood as close to the fire as they could. A few
of them got too close and went up like they’d been soaked in
gasoline. On the far side of the house, just behind the ruined

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Rebecca Brock

wall of the nursery, one of the things watched me instead of
the flames. I stared at her for a long, long time. I remembered
the pink nightgown and fuzzy houseshoes. The glasses hang-
ing around her neck by a thick gold chain.

Mom. She’d come home.

I didn’t want to stick around long enough to see if Beth
had come with her.

T T T

By the time I got back to the shelter, it was too late.

Dead things swarmed everywhere, pouring into the front
door, through the windows. And there were so many of them
now. More than I could handle with my baseball bat or my
car. I wondered where they all came from, why they were
drawn to the shelter.

Then I saw the bodies.

And I knew what they had done.

The little shits had gone “Lord of the Flies” up in that attic.

Joanie had been nailed to the slope of the roof, crucified
just out of reach of the things. Whether she died of blood loss
or shock, it didn’t really matter now. She’d come back as one
of them, and she was still pinned to the roof, struggling
against the nails in her wrists and hands and feet. I didn’t
think it was the kind of resurrection she’d always imagined.

I stared so long at Joanie’s snapping, snarling corpse that
I didn’t even notice Larry’s body at first. Sean and the others
had tied a rope around his feet and dangled him out of the
attic window, letting him dip low enough to be devoured by
the dead. I’ll never know exactly what they did to him, but I’ve
thought about it every night since. I imagined them toying
with Larry, who none of them had ever liked. I imagined them
keeping him alive for a long time, letting the dead things tear
chunks out of his body and then pulling him just out of reach,
so his blood would drip and splatter and make the things even
more frenzied. . . .

And then I saw the rest. They’d joined the walking dead
gathered beneath Larry’s corpse. Bob. Danny. And now two of
the girls who had huddled with Joanie and her Bible. The girls
dragged themselves on broken legs, their heads cocked at
unnatural angles. I guessed that they had objected to Sean’s
fun and games and gotten themselves thrown out the attic
window for their troubles.

I don’t remember much of what happened next. I don’t
remember getting out of the car. I don’t remember swinging
the bat at any of the dead things that got too close. I don’t

Night Shift 295

remember opening the trunk and getting out the can of
kerosene. I don’t remember any of that.

I just remember looking up at that window and seeing
Sean leaning out, laughing along with the other kids who’d
stayed safe in the barricaded attic. And I remember the thing
Sean held, dangling by its hair. I remember how its eyes still
seemed to see, how its mouth still opened and closed and
silently screamed. They’d killed her and let her come back.
They hadn’t even had the decency to let her stay dead.

I got close enough to splash kerosene on the front porch.
Close enough to toss a match. Close enough to hear them
screaming inside when the flames began to feed and rise.

I hoped Sharon had been sleeping when it happened, that
she hadn’t felt any pain. I hoped she’d been dreaming of her
kids.

Bri ght Ang els

K. Z. PERRY

“Wait until you see our Bright Angels.” Ms. Darth’s cheer-
ful voice carried in from the hallway. Her hair was woven into
an elaborate bun, a basket of long brown braids held together
by copper hairpins that sparkled as she ushered Mr. and Mrs.
Carlson into her office. “You’ll find we have a wonderful selec-
tion today.”

With her face hidden behind dark glasses, Mrs. Carlson
sniffed nervously, as if she was expecting a foul aroma. But
the air smelled pleasant, of fresh coffee and the pink roses
that were arranged in a centerpiece next to a plate of short-
bread cookies. Mrs. Carlson hesitated in front of the tropical
fish tank to watch the neon tetras dart around a hot pink
coral castle, and removed her glasses, folding them into a styl-
ish leather purse. Although she was attractive, with full pink
lips and a tiny nose, dark, puffy circles beneath her eyes gave
her face a worn look, as though she had been crying or going
without sleep. Her husband, trailing in behind her, fiddled
with the clasp on his umbrella until it exploded open, spray-
ing water across the leg of his charcoal suit and onto the
mahogany desk at the center of the room.

Ms. Darth appeared not to notice as Mr. Carlson fumbled
to close the umbrella. Instead, she smiled warmly, her high
cheekbones flushed with color. “Would you care to see our
little darlings?”

Ten Bright Angel children between the ages of two and
nine filed into the room and stiffly lined up against the shad-
ows on the wall. Each child wore a white oxford shirt with
cuffed blue slacks. The boys’ hair was parted neatly to one
side while the girls clasped theirs behind their ears with a sil-
ver barrette. A few clutched a small toy in their hands: a red
ball, a plastic stegosaurus, and an orange pen with the latest
Zipman logo running down the side.

Ms. Darth smoothed the hair of the tallest blond boy. The
veins beneath his grayish skin appeared so blue they gave him
a purple pallor. “We call him Andrei, our latest tuberculosis
from Romania.” His wide gray eyes stared intensely without
blinking.

“From China we have two drownings: Li and Gong.”

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Bright Angels

Two petite girls with straight black hair and greenish skin
mechanically stepped forward. Li demurely cupped her hands
together, as if she were begging, and nodded. Both had the
standard intense Bright Angel eyes that reminded Mrs. Carlson
of a tombstone.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Carlson fingered an opal locket, a scal-
loped heart perfectly centered at her neckline. “Must we know
how they passed?”

“For the most part the rejuvenation process cannot remedy
the amnesia caused by being brain dead. Occasionally the
children retain some disjointed memories from their past —
echoes of images, if you will. Full background disclosure is
helpful in understanding the child’s personality, the slight
variations in how they respond to their pre-programmed com-
mands. If you prefer, I could skip it.”

While the couple leaned their heads together to discuss it
in a whisper, Ms. Darth checked her manicure for chips.
Finally, Mr. Carlson answered, “Go ahead. We’d like to know all
the details.”

Ms. Darth smiled proudly while stroking the chin of a boy
with hair the color of milk chocolate. The boy stood motion-
less and made no indication that he was being touched, until
she said, “Hug,” at which point he obediently raised his arms
around her waist and squeezed.

“A1 died of leukemia. He’s a unique case because he
wasn’t an orphan. We don’t usually have access to orphan-
ages in the Middle East or Africa. Their governments claim the
process isn’t compatible with their religious beliefs. Anyway,
his parents paid a large fee to have his body shipped to the
center in Virginia. Once he was rejuvenated, they rejected him
because he wasn’t exactly the same as before.” Ms. Darth
shrugged. “Such a shame. They abandoned him and disap-
peared. Never had the opportunity to see how wonderful he
has become with the Affection Training Program, very sweet,
very docile in his emotional display.”

Mrs. Carlson made a face, as though tasting something
sour. “We’d prefer a girl.”

“Female Bright Angels are requested more frequently than
males — less threatening to some, I suppose. We tend to find
many more benefactors willing to sponsor the costs of rejuve-
nating young girls, especially ones once considered second
rate in their respective societies. They find it rewarding to pro-
vide girls who come from war-tom countries a second chance
at life with loving parents.”

“Who is she?” Mrs. Carlson pointed to a wiry girl who

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K. Z. Perry

stood separate from the rest, next to a wrought iron birdcage
that spanned from floor to ceiling and was filled with an
assortment of stuffed birds, ranging from a toucan to a small
parakeet, artfully arranged on crystal cake plates, with a few
cacti serving as lush filler. Unlike the other Bright Angel chil-
dren, whose complexions were mostly pale gray or greenish-
white, this girl’s skin was yellow. She looked as though her
limbs were attached off-kilter.

“This is Sara, our special murder victim from New York
City.”

“I’ve heard that murders caused problems,” muttered Mr.
Carlson.

“In many cases murders are a bit more fragile and require
touch-ups, especially the ones with an extended period
between their time of death and the rejuvenation process. But
we provide complimentary check-ups prior to releasing them,
and a standard warranty.” Ms. Darth didn’t add that Sara’s
lips were surgically stitched upward to create a permanent
smile. Although the parents that came here were desperate for
anything resembling a child, it unsettled many of them when
they learned the finer details of the manufacturing process.

“She looks deformed,” whispered Mrs. Carlson. Sara
flinched but kept her head down, still smiling.

“We have found that murder victims are particularly
grateful and rewarding adoptions, despite their slight physical
imperfections. You’ll find that Sara is absolutely agreeable.
Say hello to the Carlsons, Sara.”

Sara kept her head down and refused to meet their gaze.
Ms. Darth nudged the girl behind her shoulder to coax her
away from the wall. Suddenly Sara stumbled forward, reach-
ing for Mr. Carlson’s legs to catch her balance. Startled, he
jerked backward to prevent her from touching him and Sara
toppled onto the parquet floor with a thud.

“Is she hurt?” Mrs. Carlson rushed to assist the girl, gently
lifting her up beneath one armpit. Sara seized Mrs. Carlson’s
arm, her fingers clutching it like little vises, until Mr. Carlson
stepped between them to pry away her hands.

Sara again reached for Mrs. Carlson, this time with her
arms outstretched, in an attempt to hug her legs. There was
a blur of agitated movement, with Mrs. Carlson resembling an
animal wrestling free from a snare. A struggle, a soft pop, then
a long slurping sound — followed by a high-pitched shriek from
Mrs. Carlson. The scent of decaying meat filled the air. The
three of them formed an odd triangle of hands: Mrs. Carlson
covering her mouth; Mr. Carlson dragging Sara’s detached

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limb away, the hand still reaching out to touch Mrs. Carlson’s
black pumps; and Sara fumbling with her empty shirt sleeve,
which now dangled limply against her side.

“My God, you’ve broken her!” Mrs. Carlson shuddered.
“What did you do?”

Mr. Carlson dropped the limb, and it landed with a splat
in front of the doorway, oozing thick gobs of blue gel. His
hands raised, he backed up with odd, high little steps, as
though the lifeless hand aimed a gun at his feet. “Are they
supposed to try to hug you like that?”

For a few seconds they stood frozen, the question hanging
in the air. Then Mrs. Carlson patted her face, seemingly to reas-
sure herself it was still there, and Mr. Carlson, finally lowering
his arms and shook his head, his expression caught between
disgust and amazement. The children, meanwhile, remained
motionless, statues posed against a neutral backdrop.

Ms. Darth appeared unfazed by the turn of the events.
With calm efficiency she scooped up the limb and thrust it
into Sara’s remaining hand while repositioning her in her
place in line. “Don’t worry. Disconnections can be remedied.”

Mr. Carlson tossed his wife a “told you so” look. She
returned the favor with her best “shut up or else” glare.

“I’m so sorry, the poor girl,” gushed Mrs. Carlson, her tone
laced with concern. “I just hope we didn’t hurt her.”

Ms. Darth flipped a switch on the wall activating the over-
head fan. “We believe that a Bright Angel’s nerve endings no
longer respond to physical stimuli such as heat, cold, pain, or
pleasure.”

“Are you certain that they have no feeling?” asked Mr.
Carlson.

“We have trained them extensively to recognize various
commands that, when issued, will enable them to provide
what we perceive as the appropriate emotional response.” Ms.
Darth laughed lightly, revealing teeth with a yellowish tinge.
“That’s why they’re called the perfect child or companion.
They don’t need to sleep, eat, or use the toilet, and they only
do what you ask of them.”

A tiny beep interrupted their conversation. Ms. Darth
picked up the phone on her desk. A deep furrow formed
between her brows as she plucked a piece of imaginary lint off
her cream-colored suit. She listened for a few seconds more,
clicked her tongue, and said, “I’ll be right there,” before dis-
connecting the call.

“Excuse me; I must attend to something down the hall-
way.” She lifted a handheld from her orderly desk and gave it

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K. Z. Perry

to Mr. Carlson. “On this you’ll find an extensive biography of
each Bright Angel. They start on screen 3-B. Please have a
seat and take this time to look through them for yourselves. I
believe you’ll find it helpful.”

Shaking, Mrs. Carlson managed a small nod and allowed
Mr. Carlson to lead her to the high-backed chairs arranged in
front of the desk. After Ms. Darth left the room, the Carlsons
tried to compose themselves, keeping their eyes averted from
Sara and the blue gel oozing down her shirt cuff. From there
the goo splattered down her pant leg before eventually form-
ing a small pool near her feet.

For a short while the Carlsons consulted the handheld
and discussed their options. When they came to a decision
Mrs. Carlson rummaged through her briefcase to check her
pager, and Mr. Carlson stared at the ceiling, jiggling his heel
against the wooden floor.

An uneasy but familiar silence passed between them, as if
their own thoughts were more important than the presence of
each other in the room. When Mr. Carlson didn’t speak, he
had one of those faces that could easily be read: lips pressed
together into a thin line that said he hadn’t had sex with his
wife in weeks, eyelids that hung low and twitched as he visu-
alized Stephanie from the Corporate Finance department, just
as he had when he jerked off in the shower that morning.

“Is yours charged? I need to check my messages,” asked
Mrs. Carlson.

Mr. Carlson removed a square black phone from his blazer
pocket. And while the tightness along the line of his jaw said,
If you touched me, maybe you wouldn’t need a Bright Angel as
a replacement for my affection , aloud he cleared his throat and
noted coldly: “You have blue goop on your skirt. Do you think
it stains?”

“I don’t know.”

Another silence followed, shorter this time. “Alexis, I don’t
know about this. Are you sure you don’t want to try for another
child instead?”

Mrs. Carlson glared at him with a mixture of horror and
disbelief. “Wait another two years just so the birth mother can
contest the adoption and snatch her away again? Maybe you
didn’t give a shit, but it’ll kill me to go through something like
that again.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just that they’re really dead.
It’s eerie.”

Her voice was icy. “Exactly. It’ll be like buying a D -player
or a robot. We won’t risk falling in love with a Bright Angel,

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and it will never love us back. So no one gets hurt, right? Just
something that can be a companion for all those nights that
I’m left by myself while you travel for work.”

“Are we going to get into that argument again?” Mr.
Carlson tilted his head back and banged it twice against the
chair.

“Stop it. You promised you wouldn’t do this here,” hissed
Mrs. Carlson.

“Do what?”

“It’s just a two month trial period. If it doesn’t work out we
can return it or exchange it,” pleaded Mrs. Carlson.

“I know. But did you see how Sara’s arm fell off? I swear
that I barely pulled and it fell off like cooked meat from the
bone.”

“Can you be any more crude? Maybe you should have been
gentler. I’ve done the research. I didn’t see anyone in the online
Bright Angel family support groups complain about them
falling apart.” Suddenly all the sharp edges of Mrs. Carlson’s
face sagged. It was as though she had aged ten years in ten
seconds.

“Please, don’t make me go home alone. I can’t.” She didn’t
conceal the sadness in her voice.

“I still say we’d be better off with a dog or — ” Mr. Carlson
scowled and cut his sentence short as Ms. Darth swept back
into the room.

“Have you made a decision?” Ms. Darth asked.

Mr. Carlson exhaled heavily and reached for his wife’s
hand. He stared at her face for a moment, as if searching for a
sign, then squeezed, nodding. “We’d like Li.”

From the corner a sound escaped from Sara’s lips, barely
perceptible in the quiet of the room, a faint gasp, like the sud-
den release of air from a balloon.

“What was that?” Mrs. Carlson turned sharply toward
Sara. “You said Bright Angels don’t have any feelings.”

“I’m sure it was nothing but the equivalent of an aptly
timed hiccup,” cooed Ms. Darth, her tone smooth as butter.
“Li, you’ve been selected. What do you do?”

Li stepped forward and bowed.

“Happy,” prompted Ms. Darth.

Li gave a little hop and squealed once.

For the next twenty minutes Ms. Darth covered the tech-
nical details of the arrangements. “Here is our standard con-
tract. It indicates that you have full understanding that you
are receiving a trial adoption of a Bright Angel, not a child,
along with our brochure of commands and corresponding

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K. Z. Perry

reactions. You’ll find the transition period significantly easier if
you refer often to the brochure during your initial interaction.”

When all the necessary paperwork had been signed, hands
were shaken all around. Throughout the procedure the Bright
Angels kept their places, gazing at the scene with detached
interest.

“Li, will you please show them to the clerk on the second
floor, where you can collect your belongings and check out?”

Just before they exited, Ms. Darth held out her arm to
stop them.

“I grow so attached to them.” She blinked furiously, kiss-
ing Li on the forehead. “It’s like watching my own go out into
the world.”

Mrs. Carlson gazed back at Sara. “Is she going to be all
right?”

Ms. Darth handed Mr. Carlson his umbrella along with
his signed copy of the contract.

“Of course,” said Ms. Darth. “She is a Bright Angel, after

all.”

And then, finally, they were gone. The door sighed closed
behind them, leaving only the gentle tick of the grandfather
clock to beat away the seconds.

“Off you go to your cubicles,” said Ms. Darth, briskly. The
remaining Bright Angels obediently exited the room, shuffling
their feet. One by one they marched out — except for Sara.

Ms. Darth smoothed her hands down her hips. She
removed the hairpins from her bun, allowing the full length of
her braids to fall around her shoulders like limp brown
snakes. Suddenly the animated sparkle left her eyes and the
deep creases between her eyebrows vanished, as if a cloth had
wiped her face clear of emotion, smoothing her skin like
porcelain. Even the tiny freckles on her cheeks seemed to
fade. She shut off the overhead lighting, which gave the room
a desirable warm orange glow, clicked on a small antique
brass lamp on the side of her desk, and sat down.

Sara stood rigid in the shadows, scuffing her feet against
the grain of the wood while Ms. Darth began typing on her com-
puter. For a long time Ms. Darth worked in silence, staring at
the screen, occasionally clearing her throat, until, finally, she
glanced up.

“Bright Angel, why are you still here?” Ms. Darth’s voice
was cold and hard. “Go back to your cubicle.”

She muttered under her breath words that she didn’t
intend Sara to hear. Or maybe she did. “Don’t know why I let
you still come down to each showing. No one is going to adopt

Bright Angels 303

a murder. Not even the elderly, and they’re desperate for
companionship . ”

Although Sara’s mouth maintained its ever-present smile,
her shoulders visibly sagged. Slowly she headed out, lingering
at the doorway to stare at Ms. Darth.

Under Sara’s intense gaze, Ms. Darth sat motionless, her
own gray eyes unblinking, her pale face glowing a ghostly
white in the spotlight of the lamp.

The Ethi cal Treatment of Meat

CLAUDE LALUMIERE

Raymond and George had never thought much about reli-
gion. They’d tried going to services at their local church shortly
after adopting the child — it seemed like the right thing to do —
but the preacher said children weren’t allowed. No animals of
any kind. Only people. It had never occurred to Raymond and
George that there was that kind of bigotry in the world. They
shopped around and found a more open-minded church
about a thirty-minute drive away from their home. It was
more trouble than they’d bargained for, but they wanted to be
good parents.

They weren’t the first ones to adopt a fleshie as a pet
child — almost a family member, really — but they were the first
in their neighborhood. They decided to get a boy, hoping he’d
fit in with the all-male character of their household. The
agency said his name was Rod, but they didn’t like that. So
they called him Scott, instead. He was so cute.

They loved Scott like a son. It was biologically impossible
for people to have children, and George had heard on the
news that recent studies indicated that the lack of children
was a probable cause of apathy and depression, an uncon-
scious nostalgia for people’s animal past. So, when George
noticed that Raymond was maybe getting a little depressed,
he suggested that they nip the problem in the bud and adopt
a fleshie child. Even if it was expensive.

The mere idea of it had so lifted Raymond’s mood that
George had known it was the right thing to do. Besides, it’s
not like it was a long-term commitment or anything. Scott was
already four years old; he’d only be a child for another ten
years or so. Adoption was such a new fad that people didn’t
really know what they’d do with the fleshie children once they
grew up. This was the topic of the preacher’s sermon.

Scott was sitting between Raymond and George, with a
gag in his mouth to keep him from shouting during the ser-
vice and his hands tied to make sure he didn’t remove the gag.
George smiled when he noticed how affectionately Raymond
kept his arm around the boy.

Most people thought that, once the children grew up, they
should be sold so their brains could be used as food, or simply

The Ethical Treatment of Meat

305

killed by their adoptive families, their brains eaten fresh.
Fresh brains were such a rare — and delicious — treat. That
packaged stuff was never as good. Too many preservatives.

But the preacher at this church was a radical. She loudly
advocated animal rights, even human rights, for fleshies.
George listened. He had never considered these ideas seriously
before. He used to snicker at anyone so naive as to buy into
that sentimental propaganda. Glancing at the boy, he pon-
dered the preacher’s words. He wasn’t convinced, but he real-
ized that he now needed to think about all this more carefully.

T T T

Food was a problem. Pet food came in two formats. There
was kibble, which wasn’t too smelly, but Scott clearly wasn’t
that enthusiastic about it. He loved the other kind, the moist
food. But neither George nor Raymond could stand the smell
of the stuff, those icky vegetable, leafy, and fruity odors.

They argued about it. Raymond was willing to try, for the
boy’s sake. Plus, the vet said that the moist food was healthier.

George, however, was far from convinced. “No! It’s just too
disgusting,” he said as Raymond served dinner. They were
having brain casserole with chunky brain sauce. The brain
cake they were going to eat for dessert was baking in the oven.
It all smelled so delicious.

He continued: “And who cares if it’s healthier? It’s not like
he’s going to have a long life or anything.”

Raymond looked hurt. “Don’t say that! You heard what
the preacher said! We have to work toward becoming a more
compassionate society! To stop thinking about these animals
only as a resource, a source of food. I mean, look at them —
they look almost exactly like us. Sure, their skin is kind of
sickly smooth, without any rot, and you can’t see any of their
bones or anything, but, still, they almost look like people.
They can talk. They walk on two legs. It’s not their fault if they
smell, well, alive or something. Sure, it’s kind of revolting that
they grow old and then just stop moving once they die. But
what we do to them in those factory farms just isn’t right!”

George waited before replying. There was a tense, uncom-
fortable silence — save for Scott’s constant crying and yelling
and pounding. The boy always had so much fun when they
locked him in that closet. After a few minutes, George glared
at Raymond and said, “Are you done? Can I speak now?”

Raymond crossed his arms and nodded reluctantly.

“First, where do you think this meal comes from? From
dead animals — animals just like Scott. This is what these

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animals are — food. Meat. They’re our only source of food. And
we have to farm them, or else we wouldn’t be able to feed
everyone. Do you — ”

“Farming’s not natural. The preacher said so! And she’s
right. You know she is.”

George was livid. “Don’t interrupt me! I let you drone on.
Now you listen to me.”

Pouting, Raymond said, “Okay, I’m listening.”

George wagged his finger, his mouth open, ready to bark
his anger at Raymond, but instead he let his arm and
shoulders drop and said in a neutral voice, “Oh, what’s the
use.” He walked out of the house.

What was really irritating George was that he found
himself starting to agree with Raymond and the preacher. But
he didn’t want to. He hated this kind of sentimental anthro-
pomorphizing. Meat was meat. He was starting to regret ever
adopting the boy. None of this would be an issue if Raymond
hadn’t become so attached to Scott.

He wandered around the neighborhood for an hour or so
and then decided to go back home.

He heard the screams even before he opened the door. He
walked into the living room and saw Raymond playing with
the boy. Scott’s screams were so loud. He must really be
enjoying himself. George could see that the boy had shat and
peed himself in excitement, tears and snot running down his
face. Raymond and Scott looked so beautiful playing hide-the-
maggots that George’s anger melted away. He took a handful
of maggots out of his mouth and joined the two of them at
their game. Scott screamed even louder when George started
pushing maggots up the boy’s nose. What fun! George soft-
ened even more and gave Raymond a loving look. They kissed,
the boy’s screams making it all the more meaningful.

T T T

Basil and Judith Fesper were moonbathing on their front
lawn when George stepped out of the house to wash the car.
They waved at him to come over. Inwardly, he groaned. What
were they going to complain about now? What had Scott done
this time?

“Hello, Basil. Judith.”

They were both smiling. Basil said, “I wanted to apologize
for almost eating your boy last month.”

That surprised George. “Huh . . . thanks.” Scott had run
away once, a few weeks ago, and George had found Basil
Fesper about to pop the boy’s skull open for a quick snack. But

The Ethical Treatment of Meat

307

George had intervened just in time. Basil had said, “If I ever
find that animal on my property again, he’ll be a meal!” Since
then, Raymond and George usually kept the boy chained up
to keep him out of trouble.

Judith shook her husband’s shoulder, “Ask him, Basil.
Ask him.”

Basil looked irritated for a second, but then recovered.
“What the wife and I mean is that hearing all those screams
coming from your house. . . . Well, it makes us yearn for the
pitter-patter of little feet, you know? We’re thinking about get-
ting a little one of our own. We were wondering if you could
give us the number of the agency where you got Scooter.”

“Scott.”

“Right. Scott. So, what’s the number?”

4 4 4

The preacher led George through the church. George
looked at the frescos depicting the seven-day meteor shower
that, according to Scripture, released God’s chosen from the
ground and allowed them to inherit the Earth from the fleshie
animals who had ruled it in prehistoric times. It was so hard
for George to remember that chaotic age, centuries ago, when
people first walked the Earth. All he could recall was an all-
consuming hunger for fleshie brains. Scripture said the feed-
ing frenzy before God gave people consciousness lasted
another seven days, but who really knew? George had never
really cared about religious dogma. He didn’t see the point in
arguing over details nobody could prove or disprove. Maybe
people had simply been too hungry to think straight.

They reached her office in the back. She offered him a
glass of brain juice. “It’s organic,” she said. “From free-range
fleshies.”

It tastes the same as regular brain juice, he thought.

Sitting behind her big desk, she asked, “Is everything
alright with your family, George? How’s Raymond? And little
Scott?”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong per se, but that is kind of
why I’m here.” George looked at the floor and shuffled his feet,
not sure how to continue. The preacher waited patiently.

George plunged ahead. “I’ve been thinking a lot about all
that animal rights stuff of yours. At first I was pretty dismis-
sive of it, but now I’m not so sure. I think I might be starting
to agree with you. Especially the part about how it’s unnatural
for people to live apart from animals. I mean, since we’ve
adopted Scott, Raymond’s happier than he’s ever been. And

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Claude Lalumiere

even I have to admit that the boy’s fleshie screams are sooth-
ing for the soul. They make me feel ... I dunno . . . complete
or wholesome or something. And even the neighbors, who
were antagonistic when we first got Scott, have been adopting
fleshie children, too.” George was getting wrapped up in what
he was saying, talking more rapidly. “For example, just next
door, the Fespers have adopted three children. Three!” He
shook his hand to emphasize his point, and a morsel of flesh
snapped off his index finger and fell to the floor.

“Now, there’s a real sense of community in the neighbor-
hood. There never was before. People throw parties and invite
the neighbors to meet their new children. That kind of thing.
There’s never a moment without at least some screaming on
our street. And it feels so right, so natural.”

“I’m very glad to hear that, George. But I don’t understand
what your problem is.”

“Well . . . I’ve been thinking about the appalling conditions
in the factory farms, and all that. And I — I think I want to do
more. I want to help change things. Make this a better world
for others like Scott, for the fleshies.”

The preacher stayed silent, scrutinizing George.

He fidgeted in his chair. “Did I say something wrong?”

4* T T

“No. Absolutely not. Have you gone crazy?”

George couldn’t understand why Raymond was so upset.

“You’re going to get arrested. And where would that leave
poor little Scott, with you in jail and only me to look after
him?”

“But, Raymond, I’m doing this for Scott, so that he can
grow up in a better world. I thought you’d be proud of me.
That you’d want to do this, too. You’re always talking about
this fleshie rights stuff. Arguing with me to see things your
way. And now I do. I really do. And I want to do something
about it. Talk isn’t enough. It won’t change the world without
action to back it up.”

“That doesn’t mean that I condone this kind of — of terror-
ism. It’s criminal, George. Plus, your first responsibility
should be to your family. To me and little Scott.”

George was getting angry and impatient. First Raymond
fought with him because George didn’t believe in animal
rights, and now they were arguing because, more than simply
spouting slogans, George actually wanted to do something to
help the fleshies. Before he could stop himself, he yelled at
Raymond, “You’re such a hypocrite. Such a coward. You don’t

The Ethical Treatment of Meat

309

really want what’s best for Scott, just what’s best for yourself!”
And, with that, he stomped outside and drove away, to the
rendezvous point the preacher had given him.

+ + 4 *

The preacher said that they were going to hit a fleshie fac-
tory farm. Blow up walls and liberate the fleshies. Make the
authorities notice that people really cared about this, that it
wasn’t just empty rhetoric.

There were nine of them altogether. George recognized
some of them from church. They split up in three vans. One
of the vans, not the one George was in, was loaded with explo-
sives. They were going to aim that van at the wall of the farm.
The explosion should blow a hole big enough to let the fleshies
escape. In the confusion, they’d slip in and make sure all the
fleshies were freed. There shouldn’t be too many people at the
plant. They’d chosen a religious holiday for their operation:
the first day of the Week of the Sacred Meteors.

Well, that was the plan.

The first part went off well. They drove far out of town, to
where the factory was. The driverless van hit the wall. It
exploded. It brought the wall down. They waited a few min-
utes, but no fleshies ran out. In fact, nobody ran out.

Confused, the group advanced toward the factory. They
walked through the damaged wall and into the building.
Inside, they saw that the van had hit the security guard’s
office. His head had been torn off his body. It lay on the floor
in the doorway to the corridor.

As the animal liberators walked by, the head said, “Hey!
Who are you guys? What the flesh is going on here?”

The group ignored the security guard. George thought, I
sure hope that guy has good medical coverage. Recapitation’s
not cheap. Then one of the guys kicked the head. The preacher
got mad: “Ralph! There was no need for that!”

Ralph, who was so tall he had to bend down to walk
through the doorway, looked sheepish and said, “Sorry. Got
too revved up.”

The factory felt empty, deserted. The corridor led to a
number of closed doors. The preacher said, “The fleshies must
be behind those doors. Come on. Let’s do what we came here
for.”

The first door led to a broom closet. George opened the sec-
ond door. Jackpot.

The room was huge. Naked fleshies were stacked in a big
cage, pressed tightly against each other. Their arms and legs

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Claude Lalumiere

had been amputated, but they were still alive. There must
have been hundreds of them. They were all covered in excre-
ment. Their mouths were sewn onto transparent plastic tubes
that led to a big vat above their cage. George could see that
there was some kind of liquid goop flowing from the machines
and into the mouths of the fleshies.

George could never have even imagined these conditions.

Between the door and the cage, there was a long stretch
of tables, on which were piled mountains of amputated fleshie
corpses with their skulls sawn open. On the floor, there was
a long and deep tub filled to the rim with unprocessed brains.

The smell of the raw brains was overpowering.

The group of animal liberators, George included, mobbed
the big tub and started chomping away at the cornucopia of
raw meat.

In less than an hour, the tub was licked diy. High on food,
the activists approached the cage that held the live amputated
fleshies. They tore the iron bars apart with their bare hands.
They ripped the tubes from the fleshies’ mouths. They cracked
the skulls of the animals on the floor and gorged themselves
on fresh brains.

They fed until they’d eaten all the meat stored at that
factory.

4- + T

George lay on the floor in a stupor, his body covered in
blood, gore, and brain goo. He was roused by the police
sirens. Around him, the other liberators were slowly starting
to come out of their post-binge daze. George, alarmed by the
sound, collected himself and hurried out of the factory. He
could see the police vehicles on the road. He ran to a ditch
and jumped in. He prayed that the police hadn’t seen him.

From the ditch, George saw the police round up all of his
cohorts and search the would-be liberators’ two remaining
vans. After a while, they drove off. He’d managed to escape.
Raymond had been right. This had been a crazy idea.

They hadn’t done any good for the fleshies. All they’d done
was eat.

And then George got angry at the preacher for putting all
these stupid ideas into his head. Eating was natural. Meat
was meat was meat. And that’s all there was to it.

T T T

George and Raymond invited the whole neighborhood to
their backyard barbecue. The Fespers were the first to arrive,
but soon dozens of people were milling about the yard, their

The Ethical Treatment of Meat 311

children tied up and well-behaved, screaming and crying.
Scott was tied to the fence, next to the barbecue.

Basil Fesper said, Tve never trusted preachers. All that
holiness. It warps the mind.”

Raymond said, “Basil, it was only that one preacher who
was criminally insane. Not all of them!”

Basil harrumphed. “They’re all trying to contaminate us
with their subversive notions, I tell you. I’ll breathe before you
ever see me in a church!”

His wife giggled. “Oh, Basil! Like you need an excuse for
not going to church! Honestly, if I hadn’t insisted on a tradi-
tional wedding ...”

Holding hands, George and Raymond left the couple to
bicker with each other.

Raymond turned to George and said, “Darling, I don’t
know why I got so depressed before we got Scott, but, almost
losing you because of that stupid stunt, it really put things in
perspective. I love you, and that’s all that really matters.”

“I love you, too, Raymond. I’m sorry we fought so much.
That I got so tense and angry all the time.”

“And all that over an animal! Over a ridiculous fad! What
were we thinking?” They laughed.

Raymond clapped his hands to get the guests’ attention.
“Okay, everyone, I guess we should get started!”

George fired up the barbecue grill.

Everyone grabbed their children. Raymond looked at
George, “He’s all yours, darling.”

George dug his fingers into Scott’s skull and cracked it
open. He was looking forward to better and better times with
Raymond, now that they’d worked things out. But, George
thought, I’ll miss the screams.

Contributors’ Notes

Rebecca Brock works at a small rural library in West Virginia
and has written several file drawers of yet-to-be published
novels and short horror stories. Influenced by EC comics,
Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, and Robert R. McCammon,
she inherited her love of horror from her mother, Leah, and is
co-writing and producing several short horror films with her
director brother, Dave. “Night Shift,” her first professional
horror work, owes its existence to her other brother, Matt,
who works in a youth shelter and had the idea for the story.
As of today, he has not had to put down a zombie invasion.
But he’s ready.

J esse Bullington was born in rural Pennsylvania and is cur-
rently a sophomore at FSU in Tallahassee. He works at a video
store that specializes in bizarre and obscure films. His par-
ents raised him on a steady diet of Vincent Price and H. P.
Lovecraft, in his opinion two of the greatest people who have
ever lived. For kicks he hikes, reads, and writes. His ambition
in life is to evolve into something a little more than human,
but slightly less than divine. “Charlie’s Hole” is his first pub-
lished story.

Douc^as W. Clark has written a number of fantasy and science
fiction stories over the past several years, including three nov-
els published by Avon Books. In addition to working as a tech-
nical and public relations writer and editor for such institu-
tions as the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute
and the University of New Mexico, he has been an environ-
mental consultant, a laboratory director, and a lecturer and
teacher. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he now
writes fiction full time.

Don D'Ammassa has loved horror fiction since he first read
Dracula more than forty years ago. He is currently the lead
book reviewer for Science Fiction Chronicle and author of the
novel Blood Beast His second novel, Servants of Chaos, will
be published by Leisure Books in December 2002. He has had
stories in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies includ-
ing Shock Rock, Peter Straub’s Ghosts, Analog, Asimov’s,
Borderlands, and others.

314

Contributors’ Notes

David Dvorkin was bom in England, lived in South Africa, and
attended high school and college in the U. S. He has worked as
an aerospace engineer, computer programmer, and technical
writer. He has published fourteen books in various genres, as
well as short stories and essays. His fifteenth book, a science
fiction novel titled Pit Planet, will be published in March 2003
in hardcover by Wildside Press. His wife, Leonore, is the author
of the mainstream novel Apart From Yon, published by
Wildside. David and his son, Daniel, co-authored the Star Trek
novel The Captains’ Honor (ST:TNG #8). For more information,
please see the Dvorkin web site, www.dvorkin.com.

Scott E del man is currently the editor-in-chief of both Science
Fiction Weekly (www.scifi.com/sfw), the Internet magazine of
news, reviews, and interviews, and SciFi, the official magazine
of the Sci Fi Channel. Prior to this, Edelman was also the cre-
ator and only editor of the award-winning Science Fiction Age
magazine. He also edited other SF media magazines such as
Sci-Fi Universe and Sci-Fi Flix. He has been published in The
Twilight Zone, Asimov’s, Amazing Stories, and numerous
anthologies, including two appearances in Best New Horror.
He was a Stoker Awards finalist for “A Plague on Both Your
Houses,” which can be found in his collection These Words
Are Haunted. He has been a Hugo Award finalist for Best
Editor on four occasions.

Steve Eller lives in Ohio. He shares a house with two
females — one human, one feline. His work has appeared in a
variety of magazines and anthologies. His short story
“Consumption” opened The Book of All Flesh. He is the editor
of the popular anthologies Brainbox: The Real Horror and
Brainbox II: Son of Brainbox. He won a Bram Stoker Award for
his editing at The Chiaroscuro. He no longer edits, choosing to
focus his time on an unnamed novel. But he still finds time to
write the occasional story, like “Memory Remains.” Sadly, way
too much of it is true.

Paul Finch is a British ex-cop and journalist, now turned full-
time writer. Most of his current professional sales are in
British TV, where he concentrates mainly on crime drama,
though horror and dark fantasy are his first loves, and he last
year sold the script for a full-blown horror movie to a major UK
production house. Other recent credits include Aftershocks, a
British Fantasy Award-winning collection of his short stories,
published by Ash-Tree Press, and “Cape Wrath,” the first in a
new line of original horror novelettes from British publisher,

Contributors’ Notes

315

Telos Books. Paul is thirty- eight and lives in Lancashire,
England, with his wife Cathy and his two children, Eleanor
and Harry.

Charles Coleman Finlay’s stories can be found most often in
the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He’s
the administrator for Online Writing Workshops and lives in
Columbus, Ohio, where he does very little of interest aside
from reading. “Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle” was inspired
by the work of cognitive science philosophers like John Searle
and David J. Chalmers, particularly the latter’s article, “Absent
Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia.”

Alexander Marsh Freed has written and edited material for
roleplaying game sourcebooks, and is proud to make his first
appearance as an author of fiction in The Book of More Flesh.
Though his real-world experience with zombies is limited to
his time working in computer systems administration and
technical support, he believes those years have helped him
add verisimilitude to “Inheriting Red” (whose rejected titles
include “Reign of the Zombie Queen,” and “Mother, Daughter,
ZOMBIE”). He currently lives near Philadelphia.

J im C. Hines began his writing career with a first-prize story
in Writers of the Future 15. He has been published in Marion
Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Full Unit Hookup, and
The Book of All Flesh, among others. He currently lives in
Lansing, Michigan. To support his writing, Jim works as a
state employee ... an experience that has provided a great
deal of insight into the habits and lifestyle of the zombie.

Michael J . J asper left the American Midwest in 1994. Since
then he has written a fantasy novel set in past and present
Chicago, co-written a horror novel set in Nebraska, and is fin-
ishing a science fiction novel that also happens to take place
in the Midwest. His fiction has been published in Asimov’s,
Writers of the Future, Strange New Worlds IV, Strange
Horizons, Future Orbits, The Raleigh News and Observer, and
other markets. He now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with
his lovely wife Elizabeth. He enjoys neither surfing nor red-
necks, but he thinks the South and zombies are pretty nifty.
His web site can be found at www.michaeljasper.net

J . Robert King began his publishing career with two horror
novels — Heart of Midnight and Carnival of Fear (both acquired
by editor Jim Lowder). After eighteen more novels and nearly

316

Contributors’ Notes

thirty short stories, he’s returning to the horror genre and his
first editor. Rob is best known for his hardcover Arthurian
trilogy for Tor Books ( Mad Merlin, Lancelot du Lethe, and Le
Morte d’ Avalon). He has also written numerous novels for
Wizards of the Coast. He is purported to be the handsomest
man in his writing group, the Alliterates, a dubious distinc-
tion. Find out more about Rob at www.alliterates.com.

Claude Lai u mi ere is a review columnist for Black Gate, Locus
Online, and The Montreal Gazette. Stories in his Lost Pages
fantasy series have appeared in Interzone and in Other
Dimension, and the first tale in his Vinny Demon horror
series, “The World’s Forgotten Boy and the Scorpions From
Hell,” will appear in Redsine in 2003. He is co-editor (with
Marty Halpem) of Witpunk: Stories with Attitude (4 Walls 8
Windows, 2003). His website is www.lostpages.net.

J ames Lowder has worked extensively in fantasy and horror
publishing on both sides of the editorial blotter. He’s authored
several bestselling fantasy and dark fantasy novels, including
Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose; short fiction for
such diverse anthologies as Historical Haunting s, Truth Until
Paradox, and the forthcoming Shadows Over Baker Street;
and a large number of film and book reviews, feature articles,
roleplaying game adventures, and even the occasional comic
book script. His credits as anthologist include Realms of
Valor, The Doom of Camelot, Legends of the Pendragon, and
Eden Studios’ first zombie anthology, The Book of All Flesh.

Mark McLaughlin’s writings and artwork have appeared in
more than four hundred magazines, anthologies, and web
sites. These include Black Gate, The Best of Palace Corbie, The
Best of the Rest, The Best of HorrorFind, and The Year’s Best
Horror Stories (DAW). He is one of the three writers featured in
the poetry collection, The Gossamer Eye. Upcoming collec-
tions of his work include Professor LaGungo’s Exotic Art facts
& Assorted Mystic Collectibles, Slime After Slime and Hell Is
Where the Heart Is. Also, he serves as editor of The Urbanite:
Surreal & Lively & Bizarre.

Scott Nicholson lives in the Appalachian Mountains of North
Carolina. His first novel, The Red Church, was published by
Pinnacle Books, with his next, The Harvest, set for release in
September 2003. He’s sold over forty stories in seven coun-
tries, some of which were collected in Thank You for the
Flowers. He studied creative writing at the University of North

Contributors’ Notes

317

Carolina and Appalachian State University. Nicholson’s web
site at www.hauntedcomputer.com contains fiction, author
interviews, and writing articles.

Scot Noel is a computer software instructor, along with his
wife Jane, for Computers Made Easy, a company they co-own.
There he labors to make the mysteries of Microsoft Office clear
to small businesses and home users alike. In his increasingly
spare, spare time, Scot writes science fiction, fantasy, and
horror. The idea for “The Hyphenated Spirit” came about
when Scot received James Lowder’s invitation to submit for
this anthology. According to the instructions, these tales had
to be “different,” not treading the same ground covered in The
Book of All Flesh. “Wait a minute, the original anthology had
zombie sex, zombies in space, comic book zombies, Civil War
and techno zombies! The only thing we didn’t do in that one
was conjoined twins as zombies.” Ah ha!

K. Z. Perry is a graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop
and has published short stories in Hampton Shorts literary
magazine and Talebones. Her initial fascination with the dead
occurred as a child and she hasn’t rested since. Contrary to
her fondness for breathing life into dark fiction, she still
sleeps with a nightlight. K. Z. Perry has been accused of
impersonating a zombie, particularly in the early morning,
and was last seen shuffling among the undead in Manhattan.

Tom Piccirilli is the author of ten novels, including The Night
Class, A Lower Deep, Hexes, The Deceased, The Dead Past,
Sorrow’s Crown, Grave Men, and A Choir of Rl Children. He’s
sold over one hundred and fifty stories in the mystery, horror,
erotica, and science fiction fields. Tom’s been a final nominee
for the World Fantasy Award and he won the first Bram Stoker
Award given in the category of Outstanding Achievement in
Poetry. You can find more about his work at his web site,
www.mikeoliveri.com/ piccirilli.

Darrell Schweitzer is the author of over two hundred and
fifty published fantasy and horror stories, many of which have
been collected in such books as Transients, Tom O’Bedlam’s
Night Out, Nightscapes, Necromancies and Netherworlds (col-
laborations with Jason Van Hollander), The Great World and
the Small, and Refugees From an Imaginary Country, about
which The New York Review of Science Fiction wrote, “The real
imaginary country is where all fantasy writers get this good.”
Schweitzer has been three times nominated for the World

318

Contributors’ Notes

Fantasy Award, twice for Best Collection and once for Best
Novella. His novels include The Mask of the Sorcerer, The White
Isle, and The Shattered Goddess. He is also a poet, essayist,
interviewer, columnist, and co-editor of the legendary maga-
zine Weird Tales.

Tyler Sigman leads a deceptively ordinary day life as a
degreed Aeronautical Engineer. By night, his exploits revolve
around the dark underground of gaming, game design, and
writing. Tyler runs Mythrole Games, a small-press operation
that publishes Night of the Ill-Tempered Squirrel, Shrimpin’,
and more (www.m3dhr0le.com). In addition, he has a con-
tributing writer credit on Wingnut Games’ Battle Cattle: Quest
for the Holy Pail. He lives in Bellingham, Washington with his
wife, dogs, and cats. “Martin’s Inferno” is Tyler’s first pub-
lished short story.

Shane Stewart finds his writing switching between fantasy,
science fiction, and horror on an almost daily basis, with the
occasional poem thrown in for good measure. Having finally
published a story (“Sitting With the Dead” is his first profes-
sional sale) , he finds it to be a far more pleasant thing than he
feared, and something that is worth repeating. He currently
lives in Ohio, but he was born and raised in Kentucky — which
some people claim explains much.

J . Allen Thomas grew up in Dyer, Indiana and now resides in
Indianapolis. He graduated from Indiana University, and per-
formed much (unintentional) research for the story “ZOMB,
Inc.” while employed in the accounting department of a
Chicago ad agency. He has since gone on to become one of the
founders of Crocodile Games, and co-creator of the miniature
war game, War Gods of SEgyptus. “ZOMB, Inc.” is Allen’s first
published work of fiction.

COMING APRIL 2003

From the battle-torn skies over World War I France to the
corridors of alien prisoner-of-war satellites, the opium dens
of exotic Victorian Shanghai to the living rooms of suburban
America, the zombies rise up. Some crave revenge. Others
hunger for the brains of the living. All are driven by desires
they can neither control nor understand. . . .

Edited by James Lowder, The Book of Final Flesh presents
more than twenty tales of the living dead, original works by
such notable scribes of the weird and fantastic as:

Sarah A. Hoyt
Roland Green
Joseph Nassise
Tim Waggoner
Pete D. Manison
Lucien Soulban

AND MANY MORE. . . .

EDN 8702, The Book of Final Flesh
320 pages, ISBN: 1-891153-78-1, $16.95

81891 53860

The zombiesfrcan’t be stopped. From the pitch-black
holds of pirate ships and the tunnels beneath the
steaming, war-torn jungles of Vietnam, they rise up.
And there’s no way to slow theif shambling march, of
conquest, no cornei' of the world or period in history
, that’s safe from the invasion. Secret government labs,
the trendy galleries of New York’s art sceiie, and the
drawing rooms of nineteenth century England all
become the lair of the living dead in this inventive and
chilling collection of horror and dark fantasy fiction.

The Book of More Flesh presents twenty-three original tales of
zombie hortoV, including works frcjm such renowned chroniclers
of fantastic terror as J. .Robert, Kihg, Tom Piccirilli, Paul Finch,
David Dvorkin, Mark McLaughlin, and Scott Nicholson.

v v - f < " r;; : V y> y

s, . ,, r \

www.allflesh.com

a ‘k -1 * v MM, A J l \ ?*W* V a* *’ * w

lEtJEN

STUDIOS INC

$16.95 (US)
EDN8701

ISBN 1-891153-86-2

This collection is © 2002 Eden Studios, Inc.
and James Lowder; all rights reserved.

Cover art and interior art
© 2002 Eden Studios; all rights reserved.
All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a trademark
of Eden Studios, Inc.

ISBN 1-891 153-86-2